The following appeared as part of a business plan developed by the manager of the Rialto MovieTheater."Despite its downtown location, the Rialto Movie Theater, a local institution for five decades, must make big changes or close its doors forever. It shou

The author of the statement believes that in order not to be closed, Rialto Movie Theater needs to make changes and become up-to-date as the Apex Theater is. This conclusion is based on an unspoken assumption that since the Apex features modern apparatuses, the moviegoers, whose numbers are seemingly in a decline, might prefer to go to Apex instead of the Rialto Movie theater. The author needs to answer several vital questions to change the argument from the current ambiguous form to a clear one.

First, the author needs to ask why people choose Rialto Movie Theater. It is possible that people mainly go there because of the nostalgic aroma preserved in that theater. If the change happens, there might be no nostalgic ambience for the classic movie goers. Furthermore, the author needs to ask whether the Rialto’s box office is failing. As there are no statistics of the number of sold movie tickets, the downtown movie theater may not face a bankruptcy at all.

Secondly, the author needs to ask whether Apex can be as a successful model for Rialto. It is possible that despite all the expenditure on video arcade, carpeting, and a state-of-art sound system, the Apex is not successful in absorbing enough movie goers. The net profit of Apex might be so low that makes Apex’s investment unjustifiable. If this is the case, Apex cannot be a successful model to be imitated by Rialto.

Finally, the author needs to ask questions about the survey. Does the five-time-going-to-theater by each movie goer show a declining trend? It is possible that even with this frequency of going to the theater, an increased box office hit is expected for the Rialto rather than a decrease in the ticket sale. The author, thus, needs to ask how this frequency would be translated into selling movie tickets. Furthermore, even the movie goers are in a decline because of the price of new released films, the author still needs to ask how this fact is consistent with Rialto Theater. People might prefer watching old movies in the half-century built Rialto Theater and the price of new movies might even encourage people to watch old movies in there.

In short, as discussed above, there are several vital questions whose answers are needed to illustrate the author’s argument. As the trend of moviegoers is not clear and so are many other crucial points, the argument cannot be evaluated as persuasive.