This is my first essay in argument task. I would really appreciate if anyone could comment and tell about the mistakes. In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating and fishing) among their favorite recreational activities. The Mason River flowing through the city is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department devotes little of its budget to maintaining riverside recreational facilities. For years there have been complaints from residents about the quality of the river's water and the river's smell. In response, the state has recently announced plans to clean up Mason River. Use of the river for water sports is therefore sure to increase. The city government should for that reason devote more money in this year's budget to riverside recreational facilities. 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 the assumptions and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The argument is flawed for numerous reasons. Primarily, the argument is based on unwarranted assumption that survey telling about favorite recreational activities consist of all residents. Secondly, the argument assumes that reason for drop in the river side recreational facility depends on quality of river water, rendering its main conclusion, that city government should devote more money in budget to riverside recreational activities, invalid. The argument fails to provide cogent reason that water sports are among their favorite recreational activities. For one, survey may be taken from selected residents of Mason City, it might not comprise of the whole population of city consisting of people who have different favorite recreation activity. Had survey been taken from citizens who have different favorite activity, then the assumption that water sports are one of the favorite activities is without basis. The argument also leaves many unanswered questions. The assumption that cleaning of river will surely increase water sports might be wrong because citizens might have complained about cleaning as river water is used for various purposes like drinking, bathing, washing etc. Finally, the argument claims without warrant that devoting more money in years budget will augment riverside recreational activities. So even if we assume that spending money will help, the argument is still lacking because it does not provide information to show that Because the argument makes several unwarranted assumption, it fails to make convincing case that devoting more money will augment riverside recreational activities.
