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 $144,000. Homes listed with Adams sell faster as well: ten years ago I listed my home with Fitch, and it took more than four months to sell; last year, when I sold another home, I listed it with Adams, and it took only one month. Thus, if you want to sell your home quickly and at a good price, you should use Adams Realty."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The letter claims that Adams Realty estate firm is superior to Fitch Realty based on the following facts: number of agents, amount of revenue, average price of home sales and total time spent between listing and actually selling a home. The assumptions made, however, are rife with gaps of explanation, and are quite questionable by the following arguments.
First of all, the number of employees can not be taken as a strong metric of comparison between two companies. Maybe Fitch’s agents are more eficient in selling homes. This would make Fitch superior in quality, even if their agents are outnumbered by the Adams’.
The next arguments are regarding the amount of money involved in the transactions done by the firms. They try to imply that Adams is a better company because its revenue was twice as high as that of Fitch. Furthermore, the average price of home sales was higher in the former. Nonetheless, this argument is fickle due to lack of information about the characteristics of the homes listed by the firms. If the majority of the homes advertised by Adams are superior in price, it is obvious that the renevue and the average price of the buildings are going to be greater in number than Fitch’s. Suppose, for example, that Fitch’s agents sell 10 homes at a price of US$ 50,000 each and Adams’ agents sell 5 homes at a price of US$ 110,000 each. This gives a total of US$ 500,000 and US$ 550,000 revenue for Fitch and Adams agency, respectivelly. This, however, does not imply that Adams is superior to Fitch. Actually, it shows that Fitch’s agents are more efficient in selling properties even if the total revenue and average price of home sales on Adams firm was higher.
The author then closes the letter claiming that when he listed his property with Fitch it took more time to sell than when he listed with Adams. Thus, the latter would be more efficient when it comes to selling homes quickly.This argument is also arguable, though. The author did not mention whether both homes were similar. If they were not, his comparison of time spent for selling can not be supported. For instance, if the second home was located in a better location, if it had better ammenities, if it were either bigger or newer, this could have bolstered its fast sale.
To sum, the letter provides absolute numbers regarding each firm to assess their quality. Conversely, it fails to give substancial information regarding the features of the properties sold and the number of transactions performed by the agents, which, by the counter arguments brought up in the previous paragraphs, could undermine the main conclusion that Adams firm is superior to Fitch.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK, and more, like: maybe Adams Realty charges 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: 20 15
No. of Words: 456 350
No. of Characters: 2145 1500
No. of Different Words: 197 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.621 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.704 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.462 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 145 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 102 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 60 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.333 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.314 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.52 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.095 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 290, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ons made, however, are rife with gaps of explanation, and are quite questionable ...
^^
Line 5, column 560, Rule ID: ADJECTIVE_IN_ATTRIBUTE[1]
Message: A more concise phrase may lose no meaning and sound more powerful.
Suggestion: greater
... price of the buildings are going to be greater in number than Fitch's. Suppose, for example...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 226, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: This
... when it comes to selling homes quickly.This argument is also arguable, though. The ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, conversely, first, furthermore, however, if, may, nonetheless, regarding, second, so, then, thus, for example, for instance, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2250.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 455.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 4.94505494505 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61852021839 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.69429036662 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 207.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.454945054945 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 693.0 705.55239521 98% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
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: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.4033829404 57.8364921388 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.142857143 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.6666666667 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.0 5.70786347227 140% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.225927224224 0.218282227539 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0728592482603 0.0743258471296 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0785277585348 0.0701772020484 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.143359806762 0.128457276422 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0781286929508 0.0628817314937 124% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.43 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.94 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.