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 authors argument that increasing the size of family rooms and kitchens in newly constructed homes will increase sales and profits is flawed. In the argument, the author makes sweeping generalizations about the new construction home market based upon a single sample of data that is not representative of the entire new home construction market. Furthermore, the author draws these conclusions on ambiguous and vague terms that have many potential interpretations.
In the argument, the author states that a competitor in the area sold “ a number of homes” must faster and at significantly higher prices than the national average because they have large family rooms and large kitchens. Therefore, the author concludes that his or her company should increase the size of family rooms and kitchens in the homes they build and sell to boost sales and profits. This is a flawed assumption for many reasons. Firstly, the author is assuming that “a number” of homes entails many homes. Because we don’t the author definition of “ a number”, we cannot be for certain to its meaning. It is quite possible that “a number” could entail 4 or 5 homes, in which case the assumption is faulty. The author is also assuming that the large family rooms and kitchens are the only reasons for selling the homes quickly and at higher prices, when the homes could have sold for reasons such as large walk in closets, a three car garage, vaulted ceilings, and granite countertops.
Secondly, the author is basing his assumption off of a national survey that revealed that the two most desired features in a home are a large family room and a large kitchen. This assumption is flawed, because the author is assuming that a national survey is representative of their local housing market. For example, the author might specialize in building homes in rural areas. In this case, the national survey data would not be representative of their housing market. There, potential customers might be more concerned with purchasing a view, acreage, and landscaping more so than a large family room and a large kitchen.
The authors argument could be strengthened by including data from a survey of home owners more representative of their housing market, rather than using a national average. Secondly, the author could strengthen the argument by defining what “ a number of homes specifically entails. As it stands, the authors argument is flawed for the reasons indicated.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 5, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
The authors argument that increasing the size of fa...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 5, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...family room and a large kitchen. The authors argument could be strengthened by inclu...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 307, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...specifically entails. As it stands, the authors argument is flawed for the reasons indi...
^^^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'first', 'firstly', 'furthermore', 'if', 'second', 'secondly', 'so', 'then', 'therefore', 'for example', 'such as']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.267932489451 0.25644967241 104% => OK
Verbs: 0.130801687764 0.15541462614 84% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0886075949367 0.0836205057962 106% => OK
Adverbs: 0.042194092827 0.0520304965353 81% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0274261603376 0.0272364105082 101% => OK
Prepositions: 0.118143459916 0.125424944231 94% => OK
Participles: 0.0400843881857 0.0416121511921 96% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.87120815997 2.79052419416 103% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0042194092827 0.026700313972 16% => Some infinitives wanted.
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.116033755274 0.113004496875 103% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0232067510549 0.0255425247493 91% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0126582278481 0.0127820249294 99% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2502.0 2731.13054187 92% => OK
No of words: 406.0 446.07635468 91% => OK
Chars per words: 6.16256157635 6.12365571057 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.48881294772 4.57801047555 98% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.396551724138 0.378187486979 105% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.28078817734 0.287650121315 98% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.197044334975 0.208842608468 94% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.113300492611 0.135150697306 84% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87120815997 2.79052419416 103% => OK
Unique words: 184.0 207.018472906 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.453201970443 0.469332199767 97% => OK
Word variations: 48.5256268462 52.1807786196 93% => OK
How many sentences: 18.0 20.039408867 90% => OK
Sentence length: 22.5555555556 23.2022227129 97% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.0394980452 57.7814097925 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 139.0 141.986410481 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.5555555556 23.2022227129 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.666666666667 0.724660767414 92% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.14285714286 78% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 3.58251231527 84% => OK
Readability: 50.6343732895 51.9672348444 97% => OK
Elegance: 2.12631578947 1.8405768891 116% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.494570096552 0.441005458295 112% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.149802490401 0.135418324435 111% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0930540142766 0.0829849096947 112% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.555281768762 0.58762219726 94% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.149947251013 0.147661913831 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.209644834566 0.193483328276 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.117258126293 0.0970749176394 121% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.427465887454 0.42659136922 100% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0733931294799 0.0774707102158 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.354310549313 0.312017818177 114% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0627765413028 0.0698173142475 90% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.33743842365 60% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.87684729064 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.82512315271 145% => OK
Positive topic words: 5.0 6.46551724138 77% => OK
Negative topic words: 6.0 5.36822660099 112% => OK
Neutral topic words: 7.0 2.82389162562 248% => OK
Total topic words: 18.0 14.657635468 123% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.