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.
In this paragraph, the author argues that Adams Realty is superior to Fitch Realty because of the agency's higher revenue, greater number of real estate agents, and faster service. While at first glance these all sound like reasonable supporting statements, many of these arguments are fallacious and based on invalid assumptions that should be verified.
First, the author mentions that Adams agency has 40 real estate agents compared to the 25 at Fitch Realty. While greater number of employees could enhance the performance of the agency, this alone isn't a strong enough argument. It is possible that the employees at Fitch Realty are better qualified thus reducing the need for more employees.
Afterwards, the author uses the company's revenue to support his statement that Adams Realty is superior. It is stated that the revenue at Adams Agency is twice that of Fitch Realty and that the home sales average at 168,000 dollars compared to the 144,000 dollars for Fitch Realty. However, this difference in revenue doesn't necessarily mean that Fitch Realty is inferior. The discrepancy could be because Fitch Realty specializes in selling smaller houses and apartments which leads to a lower sale average. Also as mentioned earlier in the paragraph, Fitch Realty has fewer agents. This could also contribute to the lower revenue. It would be more cogent to compare the sales average per square feet rather than per house in order to get a better comparison of the two companies.
Lastly, the author claims that homes sold with Adams sell faster and uses a personal example to support this statement. He mentions that he was able to sell a home listed with Adams four times faster than with Fitch. However, this comparison is invalid and this discrepancy could have been caused by other sources such as: one of the houses being in a better condition or in a more desirable neighbourhood. However, the most probable reason for this discrepancy is the fact the house sold by Fitch was sold ten years ago whereas the Adams sold the house one year ago. By making such a comparison, the author is assuming that Fitch Agency has not improved and market and housing demand hasn't changed over nine years.
As can be seen, the author's conclusion that Adams Agency is better than Fitch Agency is not sound because it makes invalid comparisons between the two companies and makes unjustified suppositions such as assuming that the two agencies have not changed or improved over time.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 416 350
No. of Characters: 2026 1500
No. of Different Words: 192 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.516 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.87 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.418 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 151 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 96 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 58 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.111 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.563 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.343 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.549 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 91, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...alty is superior to Fitch Realty because of the agencys higher revenue, greater n...
^^
Line 3, column 198, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
...e performance of the agency, this alone isnt a strong enough argument. It is possibl...
^^^^
Line 5, column 319, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...ty. However, this difference in revenue doesnt necessarily mean that Fitch Realty is i...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 510, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...ts which leads to a lower sale average. Also as mentioned earlier in the paragraph, ...
^^^^
Line 7, column 686, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: hasn't
... improved and market and housing demand hasnt changed over nine years. As can be ...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 21, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ver nine years. As can be seen, the authors conclusion that Adams Agency is better ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, lastly, so, thus, whereas, while, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2072.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 413.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.01694915254 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.50803742585 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.48033616507 2.78398813304 89% => OK
Unique words: 198.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.479418886199 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 639.0 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
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: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.4981358903 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.111111111 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.9444444444 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.0 5.70786347227 70% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.284663883666 0.218282227539 130% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.103936512071 0.0743258471296 140% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0951843454693 0.0701772020484 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.176855869289 0.128457276422 138% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.072928672961 0.0628817314937 116% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.13 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.47 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.