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The following appeared as a letter to the editor from the owner of a skate shop in Central Plaza.
"Two years ago the city voted to prohibit skateboarding in Central Plaza. They claimed that skateboard users were responsible for the litter and vandalism that were keeping other visitors from coming to the plaza. In the past two years, however, there has only been a small increase in the number of visitors to Central Plaza, and litter and vandalism are still problematic. Skateboarding is permitted in Monroe Park, however, and there is no problem with litter or vandalism there. In order to restore Central Plaza to its former glory, then, we recommend that the city lift its prohibition on skateboarding in the plaza."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The author of the letter recommends that the city should lift its prohibition on skateboarding in order to restore the Central Plaza to its former glory. To prove his viewpoints, the author points out that the prohibition for skateboarding in has not been effective because there has only been a small increase of vistors to Central Plaza. He also points out that Monroe Park does not have problem with litter or vandalism because skateboarding is not prohibited there. The letter is well-presented but not well-reasoned in the following respects.
To begin with, the author claims that the prohibition for skateboarding is the reason of only a small increase of visitors to Central Plaza. Firstly, there is no information showing that potential vistors would like to have skateboarding in the plaza. Also, there could be other reasons that keep vistors from visiting Central Plaza. Perhaps the facilities such water fountains and bathrooms are not convenient to use. Perhaps traffic to the plaza has been bad lately. Perhaps the problems of litter and vandalism have not been solved. Without ruling out the possiblities that keep visitors off the plaza, the author cannot justifiably conclude the prohibition relative to the few visitors to the plaza.
What is more, the author implies that have skateboarding in the park is an effective way to solve the litter and vandalism problems without giving any evidence. Perhaps there are other reasons why Monroe Park does not have litter and vandalism problem, for example, policies which effectively decrease litter and vandalism such as serious fine and having more managers working in the park. Additionally, even if skateboarding is helpful with solving litter and vandalism problems, nothing shows that Monroe Park has a lot of visitors. Perhaps skateboarding has caused other problems such as noise that still keep more visitors from coming to the park. The implication cannot convince me untill the author gives information about the benefits of skateboarding in the park and the population that usually visit the park.
Finally, the author unfaily concludes that by lifting its prohibition on skateboarding, Central Plaza will restore its former glory for sure. Yet many questions need to be answered to draw this conclusion. First, if skateboarding is good for attracting more visitors, why did it not work two years ago before the prohibition? Things probably will be worse by lifting the prohibition on skateboarding. Second, is it warranted that Central Plaza will restore its former glory? Things might have been changed a lot that Central Plaza will not possibly restore the former glory. It is entirely possible that there are not as many people in town as many years ago, or that many parks have been constructed recently which have distracted many visitors from visiting Central Plaza. Without answering the questions discussed above, the conclusion will not be convincing.
In sum, the letter is very unpersuasive as it stands. To strengthen the argument, the author needs to figure out the real reason why Cantral Plaza does not have many visitors, and that to lift its prohibition on skateboarding will be the effective way to attract more visitors. To better assess the argument, we also need to know that it is possible for Central Plaza to restore its former glory if problems are solved. |
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发表于 2011-10-28 22:41:27
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