"为我所用"小组第十四次作业argument137

rienziUID: 2402391

TOPIC: ARGUMENT137 - The following appeared in an editorial in the Mason City newspaper.
"At present, Mason City residents seldom use the nearby Mason River for any kind of recreational activity, even though surveys of the region's residents consistently rank water sports (swimming, fishing, and boating) as a favorite form of recreation. Since there have been complaints about the quality of the water in the river, residents must be avoiding the river because they think that it is not clean enough. But that situation is about to change: the agency responsible for rivers in our region has announced plans to clean up Mason River. Therefore, recreational use of the river is likely to increase, so the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River."

WORDS: 438          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2008-4-8 17:36:44



    The arguer suggests the Mason City council increase the budget for the improvements to the publicly owned lands near Mason River. To support his conclusion, he tells us that the problem that Mason City residents who are now avoiding Mason river because of its worse water quality will be solved by the responsible agency for rivers. But through careful scrutiny, it is not difficult to pick up some fatal fallacies from the arguer's conclusion.
    Firstly, the arguer fails to explain what can show us that statement that citizens in Mason City are avoiding the use of Mason River. The aruger only gives us a opposite result from a survey that tells us that water sports are still famous in the city. We do not know what can prove that Mason City residents are avoiding using the water in Mason River. Maybe a survey can leads to the result, but the arguer does not give us any detail. An assumption that residents are avoiding the water because of the complaints of its quality can not be an evidence. Thus, he fails to convince us that citizens there seldom use Mason River's water. Without the fall-and-rise process, the arguer's final conclusion will be unreasonable.
    Secondly, even if the residents are do avoiding Mason river, we can not conclude that it is due to the poor quality of water. Some other factors can make the same result. For example, if there are much swimming pools in the city than before, people will definitely choose these places which are nearer but the Mason River. Fishing and boating can also be done in artifical lakes in the city. Since the arguer does not offer any detail about how does he know that citizens are complaining the quality of water in Mason River, we can not make the conclusion that the water of Mason River has been polluted.
    Thirdly, the arguer fails to convince us that the responsible agency can definitely solve the problem of pollution in Mason River, given the hypothesis that the pollution of water of Mason River and the avoiding of citizens there are both true. As the arguer tells us, the agency has just announced the plasn to clean up the water. We can not make clear whether these plans will be functional or not. If they do not take positive effect, the conclusion that Mason City council should increase the budget which is given by the arguer will definitely fail.
    Given the discussion above, the arguer's conclusion is ineffective. More survey should be done and more factors should be concerned to support his conclusion or make him discard it.