argument76 by mycolting

MYcoltingUID: 2563080

TOPIC: ARGUMENT76 - The following appeared as part of an article in a health and beauty magazine. "A group of volunteers participated in a study of consumer responses to the new Luxess face cream. Every morning for a month, they washed their faces with mild soap and then applied Luxess. At the end of that month, most volunteers reported a marked improvement in the way their skin looked and felt. Thus it appears that Luxess is truly effective in improving the condition of facial skin."
WORDS: 434 TIME: 00:30:00 DATE: 2009-3-8 20:55:22

In this argument, the author concludes that Luxess is truly effective in improving the condition of facial skin due to a study of consumers conducted by a group of volunteers. In the process of study, after the period of one month during which volunteers washed their faces with mild soap and then applied Luxess, the volunteers' skin looked and felt better than the past. Though the conclusion is seemingly reasonable and convincing, the argument actually suffers from several fallacies.

First of all, the author never refers any data and the way how the survey was conducted which greatly undermine the convincement of the argument. For example, there is no data provided in the argument to show that the sample of the study is enough to draw the conclusion as the speaker asserts. What is more, the argument also fails to take different types of skin into account, it is clear and understandable that the skin of human is not completely similar. It is possible that the face cream can merely work on one particular type of skin.

Furthermore, the arguer fails to rule out the alternative factors which may have impact on the quality of skin as well. Firstly, the argument point out that the volunteers washed their face with mild soap, then I want to ask what kind of soap did the volunteers used before the study? Maybe their skin's improvement is just due to the change of types of soap, not because of the usage of Luxess. It is also perhaps that only use the face cream cannot better skin, which actually must used with mild soap together. In addition, there are many factors which may influence the result of the study. Do the volunteers have some change in their diets? Does the climate have change from dry to mild? Common sense tells us that these factors mentioned above can impact the quality of skin as well.

Lastly, the author concludes that most volunteers reported a marked improvement in the way their skin looked and felt. I cannot help to ask the author is this criterion of quality of skin scientific? It is entirely of possibility that though the facial skin looks well, it virtually has many problems which are not apparent to our sight, such as mite which we cannot felt at the beginning of its invasion.

To sum up, after the analysis mentioned above, in my view of point the argument is not enough convincing to attract consumers to purchase this product. To stronger this argument, the author should provide more evidences about the experiment, and depict the process thoroughly.