The following appeared in a memo from New Ventures Consulting to the president of HobCo Inc a chain of hobby shops Our team has completed its research on suitable building sites for a new HobCo hobby Shop in the city of Grilldon We discovered that there a

The argument concludes that HobCo should choose southeastern Grilldon as the site for their next HobCo Hobby Shop as it willdraw a steady stream of enthusiastic new HobCo customers. The conclusion is based on the premise that hobby business has increased, there are not many competitors and shops and Grilldon has a large population of retired people; all of these factors will increase the business of new shop and will draw large number of customers. The reasoning in the argument is logically flawed, however, as it relies on a number of assumptions, which appear to be unsupported due to lack of appropriate data and information.

First, the author needs to provide information on future plans of people or competitors who are looking to set up hobby shops in the Grilldon area. The claim that there are no hobby shops is weak and a bit stretched without this evidence. The argument will be strengthened if the author provides evidence on the future expansions plans of competitors, their scope and range of operations. For example, it might be the case that a number of reputed companies are also planning to set their hobby shops in the town in near future, which could dent the performance of HobCo. In addition, it could be the case that competitors who are planning to establish hobby business have a good track record and are accepted readily by the consumers. This again can hamper the business of HobCo company in future. Consequently, without the above mentioned convincing evidence, the argument stands weak.

Second, reliability of poll needs to established. The author should provide information on demographic area covered by the poll in the Grilldon. For example, it might be that poll was biased and was conducted in a particular part of the town where there were large number of children or retired people. As a result, the polls could be skewed and might not reflect the true trends of the town. In addition, past records concerning the accuracy of previous polls conducted by the agency needs to be produced to strengthen the accuracy of the results. It can be that the polling agency or group in a novice in this field and has not produced accurate results in their past endeavors in the field of surveys and polls. Therefore, the author should provide evidence on the past track record of the agency. Also, the data on the manner in which poll was conducted needs to provided like type of questions asked, manner in which questions were framed etc. All these factors have a considerable impact on the polling results.

Finally, the argument mentions that Grilldon is in a region of the nation in which the hobby business has increased by 300 percent during the past decade. This statement is weak and unsupported without specific information of Grilldon. The author must provide evidence on the localized increase in the hobby business in Grilldon. In addition, the argument mentions that Grilldon has a very large population of retirees. This claim would be strengthened if the exact number of retired people in town are quantified. Also, a survey showing the percentage of retired people actually interested in hobby activities and upto what scale and limit should be presented. Besides, the argument should provide information on type of activities retired people are willing to acquire and embrace. Without this evidence, claim in the argument stands weak.

In conclusion, the argument relies on a number of assumptions and lack of adequate data to support its claim. If the author would have demonstrated the role of competitors, reliability of poll and data on retired people, the argument would have been strengthened. without this additional support, there is no reason to accept the reasoning in the argument