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 letter provides a comparison between two leading real estate firms present in the author’s town: Adams Realty and Fitch Realty. The author concludes that out of the two firms, Adams Reality is superior. The author also asserts that if one wants to sell his or her home quickly and at a good price, he or she should consider using Adams Realty. The author’s conclusion is questionable and based on certain assumptions. In order to strengthen the author’s opinion, those arguments need to be substantiated.
To begin with, the author compares the number of workers in the two firms. Adams reality has 60 % greater number of real estate agents from Fitch Realty. The writer assumes that greater workforce of a firm implies better service for customers. But that assumption is flawed. There is no concrete evidence presented in support of the assumption in the reading. Also the writer mentions that there are many part-time workers among the real estate agents of Fitch Realty. There is no mention of part-time workers for Adams Realty. The writer should have mentioned that there are less part-time agents in Adams Realty than that of Fitch Realty. Even so, it will be a flawed assumption that greater the number of part time agent implies inferior service.
Secondly, the reading states that the revenue of Adams last year was twice the revenue of Fitch. In this case, the author assumes that better revenue signifies better service. The writer also mentions that the average value of home sales of Adams Realty is greater than that of Fitch Realty. In this respect, the writer assumes that better average price of homes implicates better opportunity for clients. The author fails to consider the fact that the prices of the homes sold by Adams may be sold under-priced compared to the homes sold by Fitch. The reading only considers the value at which the homes were sold which is superficial.
Lastly, the writer tries to extrapolate his own experience with the two firms to draw an inference applicable to the overall population of the town. According to the reading, one of the author’s houses while listed in Fitch took longer time to be sold compared to the author’s other house listed in Adams. The author assumes that whatever happened to him will hold true for others as well. He fails to consider various factors like location, accessibility to amenities, requirement of repairing etc. associated with a house on sell.
In sum, the conclusion of the author is dubious and based on assumptions which may not hold true. The reading fails to provide enough evidence or facts in support of the assumptions. Therefore without proper evidence to the assumptions made by the author, it is not advisable to take his conclusion into account while looking for selling a house in the town.
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: 27 15
No. of Words: 471 350
No. of Characters: 2273 1500
No. of Different Words: 199 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.659 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.826 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.452 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 168 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 115 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 66 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.444 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.045 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.481 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.311 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.502 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.12 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 213, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...e two firms, Adams Reality is superior. The author also asserts that if one wants t...
^^^
Line 1, column 354, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...she should consider using Adams Realty. The author's conclusion is questionabl...
^^^
Line 5, column 361, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...pport of the assumption in the reading. Also the writer mentions that there are many...
^^^^
Line 5, column 709, Rule ID: EN_COMPOUNDS
Message: This word is normally spelled with hyphen.
Suggestion: part-time
...d assumption that greater the number of part time agent implies inferior service. S...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 184, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Therefore,
...or facts in support of the assumptions. Therefore without proper evidence to the assumpti...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, if, lastly, look, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, well, while, even so, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2368.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 471.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.02760084926 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65859790218 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.63862893322 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 209.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.443736730361 0.468620217663 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 728.1 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 17.0 8.76447105788 194% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 34.3162624327 57.8364921388 59% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 84.5714285714 119.503703932 71% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.8214285714 23.324526521 72% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.85714285714 5.70786347227 68% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.225402884818 0.218282227539 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0667796287373 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.102307385414 0.0701772020484 146% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.121456088033 0.128457276422 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0876932921486 0.0628817314937 139% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.7 14.3799401198 74% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 63.7 48.3550499002 132% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.4 12.197005988 69% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.6 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.65 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.