The following appeared in a memo from the president of Bower Builders, a company that constructs new homes.
"A nationwide survey reveals that the two most-desired home features are a large family room and a large, well-appointed kitchen. A number of homes in our area built by our competitor Domus Construction have such features and have sold much faster and at significantly higher prices than the national average. To boost sales and profits, we should increase the size of the family rooms and kitchens in all the homes we build and should make state-of-the-art kitchens a standard feature. Moreover, our larger family rooms and kitchens can come at the expense of the dining room, since many of our recent buyers say they do not need a separate dining room for family meals."
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 author asserts that Bower Builders company should increase the size of family rooms and kitchens at the expense of dining rooms and to standardize state-of-the-art kietchens in the homes being built to boost their sales and profits. He has come to this conclusion based on the results from a nationwide survey. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, it is important to identify three assumptions made by the author.
First of all, the author assumes that findings from the nationwide survey are applicable to Bower Builders locations of operations. Perhaps those who responded in favour of larger family rooms and well-appointed kitchens are located in Canada, while the locations of Bower Builders lie in Germany. It is possible that Bower Builders’ customers have different preferences from those in Canada, such that they prefer rooms of modest size. If the above is true, then increasing the size of family rooms and kitchens may lead to unhappy consumers and an overall loss of sales.
Secondly, the author assumes that all of his customers will prefer state-of-the-art kitchens. The nationwide survey found a preference for well-appointed kitchens, however, this does not necessarily correlate to state-of-the-art kitchen styles. It is possible that some respondents perceive traditional kitchens as being well-appointed. If this were the case, then potential purchasers will be deterred from purchasing a home when they walk into a state-of-the-art kitchen. If this scenario has merit, then the authors argument is significantly weakened.
Lastly, the author assumes that people are willing to renounce a spacious dining room. Even if most Bower Builder customers prefer homes with a larger family room and large, well-appointed kitchen, they in-turn be expecting an equally large dining room. It is also possible that some customers value family dinners in the dining room, and would therefore prefer a larger dining room rather than the former. If any of the above are true, then their new standard to constructing homes will result in a loss of sales and profits.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerable flawed due to its reliance on several assumptions. In order to fully evaluate the viability of the authors proposed recommendations to increase the size of family rooms and kitchens, and standardize the procedure of state-of-the-art kitchens, the author needs to provide further evidence to account these unwarranted assumptions.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 394 350
No. of Characters: 2058 1500
No. of Different Words: 186 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.455 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.223 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.901 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 158 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 117 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.889 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.936 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.722 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.334 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.566 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.095 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 512, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...n. If this scenario has merit, then the authors argument is significantly weakened. ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, well, while, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2123.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 389.0 441.139720559 88% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.45758354756 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.44106776838 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.12884836825 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 197.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.506426735219 0.468620217663 108% => OK
syllable_count: 646.2 705.55239521 92% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.6778740041 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.944444444 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.6111111111 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.55555555556 5.70786347227 115% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.274740146758 0.218282227539 126% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.087358627167 0.0743258471296 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0789674785262 0.0701772020484 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.152459222294 0.128457276422 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0759430806987 0.0628817314937 121% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.1 14.3799401198 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.39 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.74 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => 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: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.