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.
In the memo, president of Bowler Builders says that as the family rooms and kitchens become bigger, their sales will also flourish. In my opinion, while the above statement might hold water, it rests on several unwarranted assumptions that if not substantiated would dramatically undermine the persuasiveness of the argument; therefore, the following three questions must be answered.
Firstly, the nationwide survey which was taken, to which extent is it reliable? The author states that people adore large kitchens and living rooms. Perhaps, the survey was conducted to people who were rich. Frugal people might not prefer large rooms, since they won’t be able to afford it whereas affluent people would be glad to buy homes with large rooms. Maybe, survey was conducted in metropolitan cities and towns other than villages. If survey were conducted in rural areas, maybe people would have preferred small houses with small living rooms and kitchens. Thus, the memo doesn’t give clear information about the type of people who would buy their houses.
Secondly, will all people be happy with the ‘state-of-art’ kitchens? The author states that as their sales increased, people will prefer their products and should make their kitchen models a standard feature. Perhaps, people who are buying house from bower builders were unemployed and had to cook. But what about working employees? Were they not buyers? Employees mostly prefer to eat in restaurants instead of eating meals in their houses. Maybe, their buildings were located near their company. To sum up, we don’t know the location in which the houses are located, if it is surrounded by companies, then kitchen won’t be preferred whereas, if it were a place old retired people, then prefer kitchens. So, it is unclear of whether people prefer their standard kitchens.
Finally, who are these recent buyers? The author states that recent customers are not in need of separate dining rooms. Perhaps, those people were frugal and were in need to reduce their living expenses. Maybe, they started to buy houses because they found prices to be cheap. The reduced expenses might be due to reduce in size of rooms. Hence, Domus construction strategy might not work because people prefer smaller rooms. But, it is presumptuous and dangerous to think so. Hence, the author has to give information about the economy of his nation.
In conclusion, the memo is considered to be flawed and relies on several unstated evidences. If the author is able to provide the above three pieces of evidences and perhaps perform a systematic study, then it would be possible to determine whether large living rooms and large kitchens would be compatible with the economy.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 445 350
No. of Characters: 2201 1500
No. of Different Words: 212 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.593 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.946 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.409 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 164 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 98 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 66 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 15.893 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.225 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.272 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.272 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.054 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 326, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...s would be compatible with the economy.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, hence, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, thus, whereas, while, as to, in conclusion, in my opinion, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => 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: 2286.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 441.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 5.18367346939 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.58257569496 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.55498306489 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 218.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.49433106576 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 676.8 705.55239521 96% => 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: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 15.0 22.8473053892 66% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 55.6130375809 57.8364921388 96% => OK
Chars per sentence: 81.6428571429 119.503703932 68% => OK
Words per sentence: 15.75 23.324526521 68% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.67857142857 5.70786347227 99% => 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: 19.0 4.67664670659 406% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.126141281301 0.218282227539 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0315879370714 0.0743258471296 42% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0406180762243 0.0701772020484 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0757084206612 0.128457276422 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0436599411336 0.0628817314937 69% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.8 14.3799401198 75% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 64.71 48.3550499002 134% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.0 12.197005988 66% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.47 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.28 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 109.0 98.500998004 111% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.0 11.1389221557 72% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.