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."
The homeowner listed some statistical evidences to compare Adams Realty and Fitch Realty that lead him to recommend the former to his friend. Although it seems convincing with these data, the homeowner's argument is based on a few assumptions whose validity still needs further inspection.
The first comparison the homeowner made is two companies' number of real estate agents, and assumed that the more agents the company has, the better the company will be. However, although the number of agents may be a criteria we can look into, we also need to evaluate their performance. Even though Adams has 40 real estate agents, they may be less responsible than 25 agents working for Fitch. The homeowner also pointed out that Fich uses my part-time workers, however, it is unclear how many of those 40 agents who are working for Adams are full-time agents. What's more, part-time agents may be more motivated to work efficiently and hard simply because they have a stronger incentive to do so. On the contrary, full-time workers may not be hard workers as their part-time co-workers due to their "guaranteed" compensation and benefits. As a result of its hard-working 25 agents, Fitch may earn a higher satisfactory rating among customers which probably can bring these agents a higher referral rate and more resources.
Building upon the implication of the comparison on the average sales of the two companies, the homeowner assumed a higher average sale is equivalent to a better sales performance. In this assumption, he entirely ignored the influence of the house' value on the price. Houses sold through Adams may be on average larger, may have more acres, may be better maintained, and these all may lead to a higher average sale for the company. However, for Fitch, the case could be that the 25 agents simply sold cheaper houses in value, but made a higher profit from these sales. Therefore, the homeowner also needs to examine the original homes' value.
The homeowner also compared the length of his two houses being on the market through the two real estate agency. It took Adams a shorter time to sell his house than Fitch, therefore, he claimed Adams is faster. However, the homeowner simply forgot about a few variants that may have an impact on this matter. It could be the demand for housing was high when the owner was selling it through Adams, while the market was shrinking when he was selling through Fitch. It could also be that the house he sold through Adams was better in quality and had a higher value than the house he sold through Fitch. The differences in the houses' qualities and values can affect their popularity among buyers, and consequently, these will influence the length of the on-market duration.
As a result, even though the owner has provided a few valuable statistical information to help his friend decide which real estate agency to choose, it is very hard say that Adams is definitely a better choice than Fitch before they can check the validity of these assumptions discussed above.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK, and more, like: Adams may charge more service fees
argument 3 -- OK
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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: 21 15
No. of Words: 512 350
No. of Characters: 2459 1500
No. of Different Words: 223 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.757 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.803 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.483 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 180 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 113 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.381 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.706 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.857 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.331 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.538 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.139 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 193, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'homeowners'' or 'homeowner's'?
Suggestion: homeowners'; homeowner's
...t seems convincing with these data, the homeowners argument is based on a few assumptions ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 216, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[1]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'a criterion' or simply 'criteria'?
Suggestion: a criterion; criteria
...r, although the number of agents may be a criteria we can look into, we also need to evalu...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 564, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: What's
...working for Adams are full-time agents. Whats more, part-time agents may be more moti...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 389, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...etter maintained, and these all may lead to a higher average sale for the company...
^^
Line 7, column 522, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...that the house he sold through Adams was better in quality and had a higher value...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, first, however, if, look, may, so, still, therefore, while, as a result, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2536.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 512.0 441.139720559 116% => OK
Chars per words: 4.953125 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.75682846001 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.65847505612 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 230.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.44921875 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 790.2 705.55239521 112% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.4684361377 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.761904762 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.380952381 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.38095238095 5.70786347227 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.230225730821 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0772254756153 0.0743258471296 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0835393508717 0.0701772020484 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.141007126686 0.128457276422 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0471969023119 0.0628817314937 75% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.73 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.28 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 112.0 98.500998004 114% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.