Argument: The following is a recommendation from the Board of Directors of Monarch Books.
"We recommend that Monarch Books open a café in its store. Monarch, having been in business at the same location for more than twenty years, has a large customer base because it is known for its wide selection of books on all subjects. Clearly, opening the café would attract more customers. Space could be made for the café by discontinuing the children's book section, which will probably become less popular given that the most recent national census indicated a significant decline in the percentage of the population under age ten. Opening a café will allow Monarch to attract more customers and better compete with Regal Books, which recently opened its own café."


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.



My response:

The Board of Directors of Monarch Books assumes that, while providing the recommendation, opening a café will attract more customers and better compete with Regal Books. However, the Board of directors supports the conclusion with two assumptions that, if not substantiated, weaken the persuasiveness of the conclusion that opening a cafe will have a positive impact to the store.

First of all, the Board of Directors presumes without evidence that the population above age ten might not be interested in the Children’s section. However, the population above age ten probably purchase the greatest number of books under the children’s section. Perhaps teenagers could force their parents to visit the bookstore and in turn possibly parents of teenagers purchase the books that they might be interested in. Additionally, the population above the age of ten, who may be interested in reading the books in the children’s section, do purchase a good number of books for the child’s section. If either of these is true, then The Board of directors’ contention that Opening café will have positive impact to the book sore doesn’t hold true.

Second of all, the Board of Directors assumes without proper evidence that Opening a cafe will attract more customers. However, what if Population used to come to Monarch bookstore mostly because of the quietness that bookstore holds. Perhaps if a café opens, with possible loud conversations and loud music, then people who need quietness will find this bookstore not attractive as it was before the Café opened. Also, what if Regal bookstore opens its café by purchasing the new space next to their store rather than discontinuing some sections in the store. In that case the population who expect quietness while purchasing the books will find that Regal Bookstore. While the Monarch Bookstore would have a negative impact by opening the café in the same space, causing disturbance for the people who visit the store. If either of these cases is true, then the Board of Directors claim is not warranted, and their recommendations may be over persuasive.

However, as it stands now, the argument relies on two unfounded assumptions that render its unpersuasive at best and specious. Thus, the Directors need to provide additional evidence to prove that opening a café will attract more customers and will compete with the Regal bookstore.