The following appeared in an editorial in a business magazine.
"Although the sales of Whirlwind video games have declined over the past two years, a recent survey of video-game players suggests that this sales trend is about to be reversed. The survey asked video-game players what features they thought were most important in a video game. According to the survey, players prefer games that provide lifelike graphics, which require the most up-to-date computers. Whirlwind has just introduced several such games with an extensive advertising campaign directed at people ten to twenty-five years old, the age-group most likely to play video games. It follows, then, that the sales of Whirlwind video games are likely to increase dramatically in the next few months."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The editorial of a magazine states that the trend of Whirlwind video games sale will be reversed in the next few months. To support his idea, the author mentioned a survey faced to video-game players. The argument looks convincing at first glance, while some groundless assumptions made it invalid.
To begin with, the assumption that the survey is valid and reliable is doubtable. First of all, we do not now the subject of this survey. If the data was collected from some children who were looking at the advertisement of a lifelike graphics video game, the conclusion can be very bias. Besides, we know neither the sample size of this survey nor the question of this survey. If the research only ran among several special kids who share the same interest, the result cannot represent a real tendency. Apart from that, the questions in the survey are also very important, if the question just ask participants whether they like lifelike graphics games or not, plenty of people may choose yes.
Secondly, the assumption that the posting a advertising directly related to the sale is unfounded. It is very likely that Whirlwind video games only post the advertisement but does not plan to sale those games, or they can only sale a few of them as an attempt. Therefore, to conclude that Whirlwind video games will sale lifelike graphics games based on the advertisement if very presumptuous. Besides, the advertisement directed at age group from ten to twenty five is implausible. Fifteen years old is a very large range and a ten years old boy and a twenty years old man can hardly share the same interest. So the advertisement’s idea that the game is designed directly for people from ten to twenty five is unconvincing.
Furthermore, the assumption that the sale of Whirlwind video games will increase dramatically within a few months is untenable. Actually, there is no evidence to support this assumption. Even all assumptions listed above can be fixed, it is still too early to conclude that the sale can reverse in such a short time because it is very likely that there are several companies can compete with it and the customers will be attracted by different companies. If the author wants to strength his argument, some more descriptions are needed.
To sum up, the argument given by the author is unconvincing based on those untenable assumptions. If he wants to prove his argument, some more detail about the survey and other tenable evidences should be provided.
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because it is very likely that there are several companies can compete with it
because it is very likely that there are several companies who can compete with it
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK. Better: Suppose the survey is correct. it doesn't mean players are going to purchase those video games. Maybe the video games are very expensive for example.
argument 3 -- OK
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 420 350
No. of Characters: 2010 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.527 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.786 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.684 2.4
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No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 99 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 78 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.729 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.857 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.515 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.096 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5