The following appeared in a letter from a homeowner to a friend.
"Of the two leading real estate firms in our town—Adams Realty and Fitch Realty—Adams Realty is clearly superior. Adams has 40 real estate agents; in contrast, Fitch has 25, many of whom work only part-time. Moreover, Adams' revenue last year was twice as high as that of Fitch and included home sales that averaged $168,000, compared to Fitch's $144,000. Homes listed with Adams sell faster as well: ten years ago I listed my home with Fitch, and it took more than four months to sell; last year, when I sold another home, I listed it with Adams, and it took only one month. Thus, if you want to sell your home quickly and at a good price, you should use Adams Realty."
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.
The following argument is flawed for numerous reasons. Primarily, the argument is based on the unwarranted fact that Adams Realty has 40 real estate agents while Fitch Realty has only 25 agents, many of them being part-time, thus rendering the claim that Adams is ‘clearly superior’ to Fitch, invalid.
Firstly, the argument cannot be held valid based on the claim that Adams have a greater number of agents than Fitch. While it maybe true that most of the 25 agents of Fitch are part-time, there is no certainty that all 40 agents of Adams are working full-time. For all we know, all of their 40 agents may be working part-time. If that is the case, then there is no basis to prove the fact mentioned in the argument. The argument could have been more plausible if the working status of the agents of Adams’ would have been specified as well.
Secondly, it is mentioned that Adams’ revenue was twice as high that of Fitch, with averaged home sales figures of $168,000 and $144,000 respectively. This is again an unwarranted fact as there are no credible sources supporting these numbers. Also, the precise details of Adams’ revenue are obscure. The argument could have been made stronger if it had denoted a credible source reporting these figures and also the other means of revenue, such as advertising.
Lastly, the argument is based on the claim that a home listed on Fitch 10 years ago took 4 months to sell, while a home listed on Adams last year got sold within a month. This is again not plausible since it is not known if Adams Realty took lesser amount of time than Fitch Realty to sell a home 10 years ago, or whether it even existed 10 years ago. Also, it maybe the services of Fitch Realty have improved over these 10 years. The argument would have made a better case if it also mentioned the time period of a home being listed and sold in Fitch Realty recently.
Thus, based on these unwarranted assumptions, the argument fails to make a convincing case that Adams Realty is superior to Fitch Realty.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, well, while, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 33.0 55.5748502994 59% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1691.0 2260.96107784 75% => OK
No of words: 358.0 441.139720559 81% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.72346368715 5.12650576532 92% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.34981470047 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.49695829442 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 165.0 204.123752495 81% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.460893854749 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 522.9 705.55239521 74% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Interrogative: 0.0 0.471057884232 0% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.3608176897 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.6875 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.375 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.8125 5.70786347227 102% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.300230824508 0.218282227539 138% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.104720974103 0.0743258471296 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.109764739595 0.0701772020484 156% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.20223697797 0.128457276422 157% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.121697978551 0.0628817314937 194% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.0 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.39 12.5979740519 82% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.68 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 67.0 98.500998004 68% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.