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 friend advises selling a home with Adams Realty over Fitch Realty and gives a few reasons to support his position such as more realters and higher revenue. However, there several flaws with his superficial reasoning and more evidence must be obtained to corroborate his claims if they are to have any merit.
First, just because Adams’ last year revenue is lower, doesn’t mean that the friend’s home will sell at a good price. For one, it could mean that Adams Realty sells few valuable homes going into the millions while Fitch Realty could sell many more homes that is around the friends’ lower home value. If this were true than the friend sending the letter is mistakened in his reasoning that high revenue means that Adams’ Realty sells most of the homes that were delegated to them. Also, if it were true that Fitch Realty sells many homes that are not as expensive as those of Adams Realty, it would be a better option for the friend to sell his or her home through Fitch Realty.
In addition, the time differences are very questionable. For one, the letter sender said that one of his homes was sold quickly ten years ago. A lot can happen to a business in ten years that could have caused either of the two realters to be the fastest sellers at a given time. Furthermore, the sender did not compare both of the realtors in the past ten years at a given time. This means that no fair comparison between the two realtors have actually been made. In fact, the four month long period selling the home should not have any merit since it was done such a long time ago. Additionally, the sender notes the differences in the number of agents. Does he take into account their relative performances today, last year, and ten years ago?
If that wasn’t enough, the sender is only one instance comparing the relative speeds of the two realtors. What if the sender’s first home sold was in terrible condition when he tried to sell it through Fitch and the other home sold more recently was in perfect condition during a time when a housing market was booming? If this were so, there was yet again an unfair comparison made between the two realtors since there was likely a small market for homes in poor condition and likewise a larger marker for homes in a better condition. Also, the other competing effect of how good the housing market was at both times the homes were sold is also evidence that must be considered before comparing either realtors and making a conclusion. A good housing market means that a home will more likely be sold than a bad market.
In conclusion, the sender could be giving his friend bad advice with outdated information and unrealiable anecdotes. The sender may be providing an unfair comparison between the two realtors since there is so much ambiguity in the shortsighted evidence he or she has put forth in the letter.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
also need to argue:
'Adams has 40 real estate agents; in contrast, Fitch has 25, many of whom work only part-time.'
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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: 21 15
No. of Words: 513 350
No. of Characters: 2310 1500
No. of Different Words: 218 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.759 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.503 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.257 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 142 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 87 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 59 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 32 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.429 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.312 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.762 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.314 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.538 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.134 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 34, Rule ID: ADVISE_VBG[1]
Message: Verbs 'advise' and 'remind' are used with infinitive: 'to sell'.
Suggestion: to sell
The letter from a friend advises selling a home with Adams Realty over Fitch Rea...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 657, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'evidenced'.
Suggestion: evidenced
... both times the homes were sold is also evidence that must be considered before comparin...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, furthermore, however, if, likewise, may, so, while, in addition, in conclusion, in fact, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2404.0 2260.96107784 106% => OK
No of words: 511.0 441.139720559 116% => OK
Chars per words: 4.70450097847 5.12650576532 92% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.75450408675 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.45763425797 2.78398813304 88% => OK
Unique words: 228.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.446183953033 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 749.7 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.8764914473 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.476190476 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.3333333333 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.66666666667 5.70786347227 99% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => 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: 0.140653801944 0.218282227539 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0480288816717 0.0743258471296 65% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0720046966616 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0881158437157 0.128457276422 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0780960842442 0.0628817314937 124% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.28 12.5979740519 82% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.52 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => 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.