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 from a homeowner seems reasonable at first glance, but on scrutinising, it has some logical fallacies which can lead to the wrong judgement to the real estate firms. I will list all its flaws and materials to bolster my conclusion above.
Firstly, the homeowner has quoted the number of the real estate firms to back up his statement, which may leave the wrong impression about a company. It is possible that Fitch has only set branches in the downtown area or places where there’s a lot of real estate properties, while many of Adams’ agents are in remote area, which contribute little profit to the company. In addition, more branches mean more expenses of the company’s running cost and it may affect
Adams’ profit. By contrast, Fitch has less number of agents and many of them work part-time, which can certainly cut the running budget and raise the profit of the firm. Therefore, detailed information need to be provided to further evaluate the running status of the real estate agents of two companies. In this way, we can draw a more appropriate conclusion about whether more agents are equal to the better operation of a company.
Secondly, the chief aspect to evaluate a company is the profit it makes instead of the revenue. A company with a huge amount of annual revenue could also be unprofitable, if it is not able to cut down its running cost. Moreover, the reason for the disparity of average sales volume of each real estate property may result from their different focuses. For example, Adams is good at selling houses which are normally sumptuous, while Fitch’s speciality is to sell apartments. Hence the profit rates of the two
companies are the key factor to reach at a conclusion about their superiority.
Thirdly, the homeowner has expressed his own experience of these two companies, which is also logically wrong. The experience ten years ago is absolutely not comparable to it one year ago. Fitch may have already improve its service to sell properties much faster than it was ten years ago. Also personal experience is not tenable to illustrate the holistic situations encountered by other customers. Therefore, more statistics are needed to see the average selling speed of every real estate property, which is more eloquent to evaluate the service the two companies.
In sum, what the homeowner has presented in his letter may lead his friend to make the wrong judgement about Adams and Fitch. Hence I suggest more investigations should be done before his friend makes his decision to choose one of the firms.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 6, column 481, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...pos;s speciality is to sell apartments. Hence the profit rates of the two companies ...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 213, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error -- use past participle here: 'improved'.
Suggestion: improved
...it one year ago. Fitch may have already improve its service to sell properties much fas...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 291, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
... much faster than it was ten years ago. Also personal experience is not tenable to i...
^^^^
Line 11, column 127, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
... wrong judgement about Adams and Fitch. Hence I suggest more investigations should be...
^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'but', 'first', 'firstly', 'hence', 'if', 'may', 'moreover', 'second', 'secondly', 'so', 'therefore', 'third', 'thirdly', 'while', 'for example', 'in addition']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.247967479675 0.25644967241 97% => OK
Verbs: 0.138211382114 0.15541462614 89% => OK
Adjectives: 0.099593495935 0.0836205057962 119% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0548780487805 0.0520304965353 105% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0467479674797 0.0272364105082 172% => Less pronouns wanted. Try not to use 'you, I, they, he...' as the subject of a sentence
Prepositions: 0.0955284552846 0.125424944231 76% => OK
Participles: 0.0243902439024 0.0416121511921 59% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.74190658588 2.79052419416 98% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0386178861789 0.026700313972 145% => OK
Particles: 0.00406504065041 0.001811407834 224% => OK
Determiners: 0.0975609756098 0.113004496875 86% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0223577235772 0.0255425247493 88% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0182926829268 0.0127820249294 143% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2584.0 2731.13054187 95% => OK
No of words: 433.0 446.07635468 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.96766743649 6.12365571057 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56165014514 4.57801047555 100% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.355658198614 0.378187486979 94% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.249422632794 0.287650121315 87% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.193995381062 0.208842608468 93% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.13856812933 0.135150697306 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74190658588 2.79052419416 98% => OK
Unique words: 223.0 207.018472906 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.515011547344 0.469332199767 110% => OK
Word variations: 58.5220004599 52.1807786196 112% => OK
How many sentences: 20.0 20.039408867 100% => OK
Sentence length: 21.65 23.2022227129 93% => OK
Sentence length SD: 34.8744534007 57.7814097925 60% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.2 141.986410481 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.65 23.2022227129 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.85 0.724660767414 117% => OK
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.14285714286 136% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 3.58251231527 112% => OK
Readability: 46.5922632794 51.9672348444 90% => OK
Elegance: 1.53389830508 1.8405768891 83% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.420819988929 0.441005458295 95% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.120694063099 0.135418324435 89% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0879685838912 0.0829849096947 106% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.577155986291 0.58762219726 98% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.179810386196 0.147661913831 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.161874442975 0.193483328276 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0880840239797 0.0970749176394 91% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.309105460115 0.42659136922 72% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.130068650572 0.0774707102158 168% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.246431327387 0.312017818177 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.102162201858 0.0698173142475 146% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.33743842365 132% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.87684729064 44% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.82512315271 124% => OK
Positive topic words: 11.0 6.46551724138 170% => OK
Negative topic words: 1.0 5.36822660099 19% => More negative topic words wanted.
Neutral topic words: 4.0 2.82389162562 142% => OK
Total topic words: 16.0 14.657635468 109% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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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: This is not the final score. 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.