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 argues that Adams Realty is far better than Fitch Realty, by stating certain facts and figures which rely on statistics and personal experience. However, if examined closely, then this argument make use of some underlying assumptions, which if reasoned out, can substantially weaken the argument. Some of them are as follows.
Firstly, the author, while comparing the number of real estate agents of both the companies, makes the assumption that more the number of agents, better is the work done by the company. This may not always be true. If out of the 40 real estate agents under Adams Realty only 10-15 are getting good deals and profits to their clients, then in reality, Fitch, which might have all 25 hard working agents, performs better than Adam’s Realty. Additionally, some agents from Adams Realty might be more inclined towards sales of commercial buildings than residential estates. In such cases, assigning an inept agent from Adams Realty to sell your home might prove to be deleterious. It is important for clients to take into consideration, the kind of work done by both the agents.
Secondly, the author tries to substantiate his claim by showing the average sales of both the companies in the past year. While this seems an appreciable stat, we should not fail to notice the possibility that, although Fitch Realty has lower sales, there is a chance that it has all of its sales from a certain location in the city. In this case, if the client has their property in an area where Fitch Realty has a dominance, then approaching Fitch Realty to get the job done should be considered. Like it has been previously stated, both the firms must be analysed for the type of real estate they engage in, as commercial estates give higher sales than residential property sales.
The author’s personal experience appears to be persuasive, although there is a possibility that he/she tried to sell their first property at a time when the real estate market was at a low. At such times, with the slow moving sales and rates of real estate, it can be difficult to sell property. On the other hand, for the sale of the second home, there is a high probability that the location of the property and the sales and rates in the market were favourable for the speedy sale of that property. Thus, the two scenarios have not been studied in comparable situations.
Thus, by closely analysing these hidden omissions, we can state that the author’s claim is not warranted. While the statistics seem to bolster their argument, they have not taken into consideration the nature of the job of both the companies and the time frame from which the statistics have been obtained. If analysed with care, then it can turn the odds in favour of Fitch Realty.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 476 350
No. of Characters: 2224 1500
No. of Different Words: 220 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.671 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.672 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.432 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 140 100
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: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.24 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.7 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.53 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.115 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 18, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
The author argues that Adams Realty is far better than Fit...
^^
Line 1, column 254, Rule ID: IF_IS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
...e of some underlying assumptions, which if reasoned out, can substantially weaken ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, while, in fact, kind of, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2303.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 475.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 4.84842105263 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66845742379 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.55752650588 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 232.0 204.123752495 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.488421052632 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 706.5 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 10.0 2.70958083832 369% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.0236805106 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.15 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.75 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.5 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.270230455251 0.218282227539 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0752358625969 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0840972604771 0.0701772020484 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.13729638613 0.128457276422 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.103618438519 0.0628817314937 165% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.15 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.13 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.