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.
At the face value the idea of president of Bower Builders appears interesting and customer-oriented; however, under a close scrutiny it reveals that the argument is rife with several flaws.
In the first place, the president refers to findings of a nationwide survey which suggests that 2 significant features that impact the sale and profit of a home are the big size of a large family room and a modern kitchen. Superficially, it is relatively obvious that the majority of the buyers prefer to buy a house with those mentioned qualities, but the author do not elucidate the reliability and validity of the survey, the financial profile of statistical sample responded the survey and the other items appeared in the survey.
Secondly, the memo points to a local rival, Domus Construction, which has successfully sold its homes including two above-mentioned features. Albeit the company of Bower Builders can imitate their strategy for producing more profits, but the author should clarify that the Domus Construction has achieved this success at what price? Perhaps, that company has made further investment in order to construct the cutting edge domiciles that consequently boost sale and profit.
Thirdly, although the decision of the president of Bower Builders to increase the size of the family rooms and kitchens in all the homes could be taken as a positive measure, but the manner they intend to adopt is not rational as they plan to eliminate the dining room aiming at keeping up with the other successful companies. To justify this action, they merely resort to feedbacks that they have recently obtained from their buyers who claim that the presence of a separate dining room for family meals is not necessary. This interpretation is obviously invalidated because there are still many other families who maybe in favor of eating their meals at a dining room.
In conclusion, the argument seems tenuous and does not produce a cogent case for following such adjustments. The president of Bower Builders could take other measures into consideration in order to stay competitive in the area of construction.
Argument 1 -- OK
Argument 2 -- OK
Argument 3 -- OK
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
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No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
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No. of Words: 345 350
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Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.31 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.046 4.6
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No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 41 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 31.364 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.651 7.5
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Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.045 0.07
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