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A6. The following appeared as part of a business plan created by the general manager of the Multon Electronic Company.

“In response to complaints from customers about the difficulty of installing and operating Multon’s products, Multon Electronic Company tried an experiment. The Customer Service Department has long suspected that customers are not reading the instructions that are included with every new purchase, and so it inserted a gift certificate at the end of every instruction manual. Because only 75 people returned the certificates in a three-month period last year, Multon Electronics has proved its point that customers are not reading the instructions. The Customer Service Department can solve this problem by providing every new customer with an instructional videotape.”

According to the argument, the author asserts that customers of Multon Company complains of difficulties in installing and operating because they do not read the instruction involved in every new purchase. Further, the author claims that replacing instruction with videotape will surely resolve the problem. To buttress his claim, the author cites that only 75 people returned the gift certificates at the end of instruction, and then hastily concludes that only 75 people read the documents. The author’s reasoning is dubious for the following reasons.

First, the author quotes that only 75 people returned the certificates to solidify his conclusion that the proportion of people reading the instruction is small. The validity of the statistic, however, is open to doubt because the author fails to provide the total number of Multon Company’s customers during that period. If Multon Comapany manufactures specific equipment that usually used in big factories, then it is possible that the company sold only 80 products during the 3 month period, and the 75 customers account for a large proportion of all the purchasers. If the scenario is true, we can hardly reach the author’s conclusion that people rarely read the instruction of the product.

Second, the author illogically assumes that people who did not return the certificates actually did not read the instruction. The information offered in the argument is insufficient to make the assumption acceptable. Many other factors may contribute to people’s reluctance to return the certificates. For instance, people may have little interests in the gift provided by Multon Company, or perhaps the address of Multon Company is not clear published on the instruction and thus many people failed to mail their certificates. Without ruling out these possibilities, the author reached a unwarranted conclusion.

Last but not least, the author unfairly assumes that replacing instruction with vediotape will certainly resolve the problem. No information, however, is offered to guarantee the success of the recommendation. Many other factors may help to explain the inconvenience of install and operation. For example, people may have difficult to install and operate the production because the instruction involved is too vague to be understood. Or it is possible that the product itself is really difficult to install, and the company need to ameliorate the product, but not to provide customers with vediotape. Any of the scenarios, if true, will invalidate the author’s recommendation.

To sum up, the argument is not persuasive as it stands, because the author fails to provide concret evidence in the analysis to bolster the conclusion. To make the arguemnt more logically acceptable, the author has to provide more convincing data about the total number of customers. Moreover, the author must rule out the all the possibilities mentioned above.