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 author seems pretty adamant while stating that Adams Realty is superior to Fitch Realty. But upon perusing the arguments presented by him/her, it seems that he/she was too quick to jump to the conclusion. There are some baseless assumptions that need further analysis.
First, the author states that Adams is superior because it has more number of employees. This fact is not per se the most convincing. Having a greater number of full-time employees does not justify that they are sincere, or hard-working for that matter. It could be that the employees of Fitch Realty are so diligent that they sate the company's requirements. And working in contingent is generally considered better than working in large groups which may have warring interests. Based on this proposition, it seems plausible that the author had taken some liberties while arriving at the conclusion
The second thing that the authors mentions is the sales figures and while they are decisive, one has to look at the underlying facts. Facts like location of the houses that the two firms list, the kinds of customers the firms deal with etc. These data have not been furnished so the figures themselves are inconclusive. Only when presented with precise details can they yield some cogent result. Maybe the houses that Fitch Realty lists are not in the desirable location, or the houses are not in good condition. It could also be that the agents of Fitch Realty have been able to sell houses in worse condition than those of the Adams Realty, in which case the workers of the former are much more proficient. But this information has not been provided to us so it is difficult to prove.
The author then goes on to state that he/she listed his/her house with Fitch, it took more than four months to sell and when listed with Adams, it took only a month. The author fails to understand that the former was 10 years ago while the latter was only a year ago. This time difference certainly plays an important role in such a drastic difference in the sales number. It could be that 10 years ago the market was down and even Adams Realty would have struggled to sell his/her house. One hypothesis could also be that the author's former house was located in an undesirable area or the house was not in a good condition. These factors, when taken into consideration, further undermine the authors conclusion.
As we can see that many details like nature of the employees, location of the houses, state of the market 10 years ago versus year ago etc. are missing and hence to reach the conclusion that the author so firmly believes would be erroneous. Unless and until the aforementioned facts and details which are imperative to the judgement are provided, one cannot reach any conclusion.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 480 350
No. of Characters: 2237 1500
No. of Different Words: 219 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.681 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.66 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.398 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 136 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 91 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 67 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.87 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.659 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.609 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.28 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.482 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.084 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 694, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...to consideration, further undermine the authors conclusion. As we can see that many ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, hence, if, look, may, second, so, then, while, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 25.0 13.6137724551 184% => OK
Pronoun: 52.0 28.8173652695 180% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2293.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 475.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 4.82736842105 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66845742379 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.50464034718 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 224.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.471578947368 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 702.9 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 43.410808146 57.8364921388 75% => OK
Chars per sentence: 95.5416666667 119.503703932 80% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.7916666667 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.91666666667 5.70786347227 51% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.134384036947 0.218282227539 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0431317210932 0.0743258471296 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0740901627959 0.0701772020484 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0886481027287 0.128457276422 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0540650832778 0.0628817314937 86% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.2 14.3799401198 78% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.73 12.5979740519 85% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.87 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 99.0 98.500998004 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.0 12.3882235529 48% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
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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.