The following appeared as part of a business plan by the Capital Idea Investment firm.
“Currently more and more books are becoming available in electronic form — either free of charge on the Internet or for a very low price per book on CD-ROM.* People who would not pay bookstore prices will now have access to whatever book they want from their home or work computers. Consequently, literary classics are likely to be read more widely than ever before: 72 percent of those responding to a recent online survey said they would read books in electronic form, and 81 percent said they believed that reading classic works was important. Given this newly developing market, we should invest in E-Classics, a new company that sells electronic versions of literary classics.”
*A CD-ROM is a small portable disc capable of storing relatively large amounts of data that can be read by a computer.
报纸的图书版的文章：
现在越来越多的书有了电子版，或者放在网上免费获得，或者在光盘上以很低的价格出售。因此文学经典可以得到比以前更广泛的阅读。不能以书店价格购买这些书的人现在可以用很少的钱或者不花钱来阅读他们。类似的，觉得去图书馆或者等待其他人还书不方便的人现在可以通过家里或者工作用的电脑得到他想要的任何名著。这和文学名著接触的增长将从根本上影响公众的阅读品味，塑造比以前更成熟更博学的读者。
1. More accesses to cheaper books do not necessarily guarantee the desire to read classics.
2. the survey is doubtful
3. It is hard to make profit when there are so many E-books available on the net.
In this article the author concludes that literary classics are likely to be read more widely than ever before. The author’s line of reasoning is that the availability of books in electronic form and access of books via the Internet has removed the two major impediments that prevented people from reading literary classics, namely price and convenient access. Since books can be accessed from home or work via computers at little or no cost, the author believes that significant changes in the society will occur. Specifically, the author maintains that access to literary classics will affect the public’s taste in reading and will result in a more learned and cultured reading audience. The author’s argument is unconvincing for several reasons.
First, the author assumes that price and convenient access are the primary reasons people fail to read literary classics. While this is a tempting assumption, it is not obviously true. For example, other reasons, such as lack of interest in these books or awareness of them on the part of the reading public could equally account for the failure to read them. Consequently, it may turn out that, contrary to the author’s expectation, the number of people who read literary classics is unaffected by their increased availability and lower cost.
Second, while it may be the case that access to books at affordable prices has increased as a result of new technology, the author provides no evidence for the assumption that access to literary classics at affordable prices has increased as well. On the face of it, this assumption seems innocuous; however there may be reasons that prevent literary classics from being marketed in the fashion described by the author. For example, the inability to secure the requisite permissions to reproduce these books in electronic form, or the lack of commercial interest in marketing them via the Internet could undermine the author’s assumption.
In conclusion, this argument is not convincing. To strengthen the argument the author would have to provide evidence for the assumption that price and accessibility are the main reasons people fail to read literary classics. Additionally, evidence would be required for the assumption that access to literary classics will be increased.