Argument 7
7. The following is a recommendation from the Board of Directors of Monarch Books.
"We recommend that Monarch Books open a café in its store. Monarch, having been in business at
the same location for more than twenty years, has a large customer base because it is known for its
wide selection of books on all subjects. Clearly, opening the café would attract more customers.
Space could be made for the café by discontinuing the children's book section, which will probably
become less popular given that the most recent national census indicated a significant decline in
the percentage of the population under age ten. Opening a café will allow Monarch to attract more
customers and better compete with Regal Books, which recently opened its own café."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to
decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how
the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The author suggests that Monarch Books should open a cafe in its store thus attracting more customers. To support this argument, the author points out that the percentage of the population under age ten has declined according to the most recent national census, and transferring the current children's book section into a cafe can cast a spell on customers just like its competitor Regal Books which recently opened an in-store cafe. It seems to make sense at first glance, a close scrutiny of each of these facts, however, reveals that an illogical reasoning which is rife with flaws is much near the surface.
In the first place, the author refers to the national census which indicates that the percentage of population of children under ten has decreased, so less children's book is needed. Although the possibility of this assumption cannot be denied, the author fails to answer the question that whether the population and the percentage of the population alleviated at the same time. An appropriate example is not that far to seek. Assume that the population of the country increased much faster than the population of children under ten does, the percentage of the latter indeed falls down, the exact number of children at this age, however, rises. Furthermore, why the percentage of population of kids cannot increase in the near further remains unsolved. Only when the author is able to exclude these and other possible circumstances can he confirm that children's books will become less popular.
In the second place, another problem with the argument involves that even if the evidence turns out to answer the foregoing assumption, the author's argument that a cafe will attract more customers like in the case of Regal Books, nevertheless, is not necessarily the case as well. The author does not supply any warrant to verify this assumption. It is also possible that people who live near the Monarch Books do not like drinking coffee so much as those in the neighborhood of Regal Books. If it is so, the experience of Regal has little meaning for Monarch. Without illustrating why these or other alternative explanations do not exist, the author cannot justifiably conclude that a cafe will has such a magic on the customers.
The last but not the least important, even building upon the correction of what mentioned above, there is still something unconvincing when the author implies that opening a cafe is a better way to run the store. Neither any conclusive scientific evidence nor anecdotal evidence is presented to aver that the owner of Monarch is able run a cafe as good as a bookstore. The full conviction of the argument is still challenged if the owner knows nothing of coffee business. In order to reach the cited conclusion, this question also remains for the author to make further investigation about the possibility of running a cafe that is much different from a bookstore.
To sum up, the argument is scarcely based on valid evidence or sound reasoning, either of which is indispensable for a conclusive argument. To bolster the recommendation that the Monarch Books ought to open a cafe, the author must try to answer the above questions for a more persuasive reasoning.
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发表于 2012-2-13 16:01:34
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