argument task essay

[dicapino]

Nature's Way, a chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products, is opening its next franchise in the town of Plainsville. The store should prove to be very successful: Nature's Way franchises tend to be most profitable in areas where residents lead healthy lives, and clearly Plainsville is such an area. Plainsville merchants report that sales of running shoes and exercise clothing are at all-time highs. The local health club has more members than ever, and the weight training and aerobics classes are always full. Finally, Plainsville's schoolchildren represent a new generation of potential customers: these schoolchildren are required to participate in a fitness-for-life program, which emphasizes the benefits of regular exercise at an early age.

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.

**** not timed.please help me critique this essay. thanks

The author avers that Nature’s Way, a health products retailer, would be successful or make profit in Plainsville since its residents have interest in living healthy lives. While individuals may be fastidious about their health and thus patronize such stores, this argument is bolstered by faulty assumptions and  vague language.

Firstly, the author assumes that high sales of sportwear and kits are a clear pointer that Nature’s Way would make profit in Plainsville. These high sales may not have profited the retailers; it could be that other stocks like exercise equipments that would have produced more profit received a dearth of patronage. Nature’s Way could be a retailer that invest more in heavy exercise equipments and surely would not make huge profit if there low sales in these stocks and high sales in sportwears. To bolster this argument he should give evidence that sport wears are the only health products sold in Plainsville, and that Nature’s Way majors in the sale of sportwears.

Together with propping his argument with residents’ propensity to buy sportwears, he assumes that large turnout at aerobic classes and health clubs assures of Nature’s Way profiting. These large turnouts are not a certainty that they are all interested in keeping healthy or patronising health shops. Residents could see these gatherings as an opportunity to socialize and have fun: bored old folks could go to local health clubs to meet friends; youths go to aerobic classes to see their friends and such individuals may not need to get sportwears. If these are the attitudes of a vast number of residents, then Nature may not be successful in Plainsville. The author has to provide a survey that shows the number of individuals that actively participate in these projects. 

In arguing that there are large turnouts at health clubs and aerobic classes the author makes use of ambigous and vague phrases like ‘more members than ever’ and ‘always full.’ These terms can be construed in many ways. May be the number at the health club increased from 5 to 10, and just 10 out of 30 persons are sedulously invovled in aerobic exercise. Such information, if true, does not provide an answer to how Nature would be succesfull in Plainsville, as many of these residents may not patronise them. The author should give actual numbers.

Finally, the author prognosticates of future customers to be made from kids, since they are being exposed to health related programs. Would these kids continue live healthy lives? Even if they do would they need to get health products from Nature? Kids may be enthusiastic of such health programs now, but some may become insouciane about health related issues: eating fatty foods; avoiding daily exercises. Also, some of these kids may even move out of Plainsville and thus this future customers may not be available to patronise Nature’s Way. Evidence that these kids would keep been healthy and patronise Nature in the future would bolster these claim.

In summary, to make this argument iron clad the author has to disabuse his faulty assumptions.