Argument 1

TOPIC: ARGUMENT1 - The following appeared in a memorandum written by the vice president of Nature's Way, a chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products.
"Previous experience has shown that our stores are most profitable in areas where residents are highly concerned with leading healthy lives. We should therefore build our next new store in Plainsville, which has many such residents. Plainsville merchants report that sales of running shoes and exercise clothing are at all-time highs. The local health club, which nearly closed five years ago due to lack of business, has more members than ever, and the weight training and aerobics classes are always full. We can even anticipate a new generation of customers: Plainsville's schoolchildren are required to participate in a 'fitness for life' program, which emphasizes the benefits of regular exercise at an early age."
WORDS: 405 TIME: 00:29:09 DATE: 2008-3-25 20:37:22

The vice president of Nature's Way concludes that they should promptly open a new store in Plainsville. To support this conclusion, the speaker chiefly presents three reasons. First, consumers in Plainville will surely merchandise in the store of Nature's Way in light of previous experience. Secondly, the local health club is extremely welcomed among folks in Plainville. Thirdly, a fitness program that requires schoolchildren to take part in will guarantee a new generation of clientele. However, close scrutiny of evidence unveils that this statement actually suffers from a few critical fallacies which would undermine the conclusion.

First, the speaker generalizes the previous experience too cursory. Albeit residents are concerned with their healthy, the speaker's stores can gain much unless the residents want to purchase the commodities supported by the speaker's store. It is highly possible that the multitudes in Plainsville are not interested in spending money on health food or other health-related products. All they want perhaps is just running for a while during morning time. Or people there have already owned a myriad of products that are similar to what Nature's Way sells. Therefore, the conclusion would be weakened, unless the speaker provides more detailed information about residents in Plainsville.

Secondly, the fact that the local club are filled with people who are concerned about health may ironically demonstrate that what multitudes in Plainsville really need is coach, instead of specific sports products or health food. Another factor that may attract local residents is that they enjoy the communication among groups of people.

Thirdly, the program worked out in Plainsville does not mean that schoolchildren will of course go to stores to buy any kind of sports equipment or clothe. The program says: schoolchildren should participate in regular exercise at an early age. Therefore, we can predict that all schools located in Plainsville will offer more PE classes to students, instead of encouraging them to spend money on health-related products. Therefore, students who study in schools of Plainsville would not likely be the potential customers as the speaker assumes. The conclusion thus would be weakened.

In summary, this statement indeed suffers from a few vital flaws as discussed above. To solidify the conclusion, the speaker would have to provide more information about the purchasing habit of residents in Plainsville, and further demonstrate that his or her store will surely overshoot local rivals. Finally, the speaker has to proven schoolchildren are potential clientele in future.