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 above argument convinces the reader to make sense out of it if read in one go. However upon a close observation, we can spot a few loopholes in the same. It takes into account 2 realty owners Adams and Fitch and compares their work on disparate basis.
It starts talking about superiority in terms of the number of persons employed by the two. It compares the number of real estate agents and also states that fitch has few agents working only as part time. Further it states that Adams average revenue is double than that of fitch's. But does it ever mention the year of origination of both the companies? What if Adam is in the real estate business since say 25 years and fitch came like 5-10 years later ? Also, there is not much difference in the average value of the homes sold between the two as stated above and keeping in mind that Fitch has less no of agents, it might be a smaller firm in terms of capital and is still trying to match up to Adams average sale, is commendable. Hence we cannot really compare the two on such grounds.
Going forward the given argument, the most unrealistic comparison is listing your house with Adams as it sells faster than Fitch's. This is so abysmal because the author of this argument had listed one of his house for sale ten years ago with Fitch and next house for sale last month with Adams. Ten years is a lot of time in an industry. A lot changes in ten years. What if ten years ago was the time when Fitch was new in the real estate? Or what if Fitch was going through hard times(like low on number of employees or yet to establish reputation) during the time when the author wanted to sell his house? Hence, such a statement is absolutely absurd your house sells faster with Adams and that Adams fetch you a good price for your house as the author never tried to list his second house with Fitch to see the results as of today.
Hence it is just no grounds to compare the two as per this argument. However, if the author would have compared the two companies performance, as of today, this argument would be more persuasive in nature.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- OK
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Let's analyze the structure of the statement and argue accordingly:
condition 1:
Adams has 40 real estate agents; in contrast, Fitch has 25, many of whom work only part-time. //maybe agents in Fitch are more professional
condition 2:
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. //maybe Adams charge more service fee
condition 3:
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. //your argument 3 ok
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 389 350
No. of Characters: 1668 1500
No. of Different Words: 199 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.441 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.288 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.134 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 92 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 60 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 31 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 20 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.882 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.915 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.824 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.318 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.525 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.137 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 84, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...make sense out of it if read in one go. However upon a close observation, we can spot a...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 92, 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.
... number of persons employed by the two. It compares the number of real estate agen...
^^
Line 3, column 195, Rule ID: EN_COMPOUNDS
Message: This word is normally spelled with hyphen.
Suggestion: part-time
...at fitch has few agents working only as part time. Further it states that Adams average r...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 602, Rule ID: NOW[2]
Message: Did you mean 'now' (=at this moment) instead of 'no' (negation)?
Suggestion: now
...and keeping in mind that Fitch has less no of agents, it might be a smaller firm i...
^^
Line 3, column 734, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
... to Adams average sale, is commendable. Hence we cannot really compare the two on suc...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...itch to see the results as of today. Hence it is just no grounds to compare the tw...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 93, Rule ID: IF_WOULD_HAVE_VBN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'had compared'?
Suggestion: had compared
...r this argument. However, if the author would have compared the two companies performance, as of to...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, however, if, really, second, so, still, talking about
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1706.0 2260.96107784 75% => OK
No of words: 389.0 441.139720559 88% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.38560411311 5.12650576532 86% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.44106776838 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.20719044893 2.78398813304 79% => OK
Unique words: 205.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.526992287918 0.468620217663 112% => OK
syllable_count: 534.6 705.55239521 76% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.59920159681 88% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 61.2922701674 57.8364921388 106% => OK
Chars per sentence: 89.7894736842 119.503703932 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.4736842105 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.73684210526 5.70786347227 65% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.214882182409 0.218282227539 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0616793987019 0.0743258471296 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0640750825625 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.11608796895 0.128457276422 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0702358912348 0.0628817314937 112% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 9.5 14.3799401198 66% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 68.1 48.3550499002 141% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 12.197005988 71% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 8.18 12.5979740519 65% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.27 8.32208582834 87% => OK
difficult_words: 65.0 98.500998004 66% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.