The following appeared in a health magazine."The citizens of Forsythe have adopted more healthful lifestyles. Their responses to a recent survey show that in their eating habits they conform more closely to government nutritional recommendations than the

The author's argument that the people of Forsythe have adopted more healthful lifestyles compared to ten years before is flawed. In the argument, the author not only draws conclusion based on vague and ambiguous terms but also uses data from limited sample to make sweeping generalization about an entire population. Furthermore, the author makes the mistake of linking the increased sale of food products containing kiran to a more healthful lifestyle.

To begin, the conclusion is based on the fact that the recent survey depicting the citizens of Forsythe now conform more to government nutritional recommendation compared to ten years before is true representative of the entire population. Although the recent survey might not represent the entire population of Forsythe. In order to make the argument strong and conclusive the author needs to provide the number of people which participated in the recent survey and what number of people responsed in the observing the governmental nutritional recommendation. If proper statistics are provided regarding the recent survey, this would surely made the author's argument more strong and conclusive. Since the author does not provide any information regarding the number of people who participated in the recent survey, it is impossible to conclude that the citizens of Forsythe have adopted more healthful lifestyle.

Secondly, the conclusion is based on some vague and ambiguous terms like more, most and reduces. Here the author assumes that more means significantly more, most means large number of people and reduces means a large reduction. But these terms can have many different interpretations. For example the author has cited the example of food products containing kiran, a substance that reduces cholesterol. The word reduce used here needs to be define, it is possible that the kiran might reduce the cholesterol by only 1 percent than the increase sale of food product containg kiran can make the author's argument unwarranted. The argument can be made strong if the author define these terms.If proper definition of these vague terms are provided, this would certainly made the author's more plausible. Since the author does not provide any information regarding these ambiguous terms,it is impossible to conclude that the citizens of Forsythe have adopted more healthful lifestyle.

Thirdly, the conclusion is based on the trend of increase sale of food products containing kiran which means more people of Forsythe are leading a more healthful lifestyle. The evidence provided for kiran is that it reduces cholesterol therefore it is more healthier thing to consume. But food product containing kiran can have negative implications on different organs of human being. Therefore the author needs to consider and discuss the impact of kiran on different body organs. Therefore the argument can be made strong if a more detailed biological analysis of food containing kiran is done and presented in the argument. And by looking at such detailed biological analysis we can conclude really whether kiran is beneficial for health or not. Since the author does not provide any information regarding the biological analysis of kiran, it is impossible to conclude that more consumption of kiran means more healthful lifestyle.

The argument can be strengthened if the author provided information regarding the number of people which participated in the recent survey. The argument could further be strengthened if the author were to define key terms as well as define relation between kiran and healthful lifestyle. As it stands, however, the argument is flawed for the reasons indicated.