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 author tries to compare two reality firms - Adam Realty and Fitch Realty - by taking into account their number of employees, revenues of each firm, the average cost of each home sold be them and finally, the time taken for the author to sell a home when listed under different realty firms. Though the author presents important statistics related to two firms, one would require further information to acctually evaluate which one is better. In the subsequent paragraphs, we will see what are the assumptions the author's conclusions are based on and what are the implications if the assumptions do not hold true.
Fistly, the author states that Adam Realty has 40 employees where as Fitch Realty has only 25 emplyees and that too, they are working part-time. In supporting the above statement, the author assumes that more the number of employees, better the performance of the company. But more than that, the efficiancy and the business model with which the realty firms work is important. May be the technology that the Fitch Realty firm use necessiates fewer employees than otherwise needed. It is also the efficacy of the employees that should determine which firm is superior. The threshold for efficiany in Adam Realty might be lower as compared with that of Fitch Realty. If either of the factors are not in accordence with what the author has assumed, the author's reasoning is weakened.
Secondly, the author states that the revenu of Adam Realty is twice as much as Fitch's. What we should be really looking at is the amount of the Profit they were able to make out of the bussiness. The author assumes that higher the revenue, higher is the profit. It cannot be the case. It might very well be the case that Adam Realty is investing more amount of money than Fitch Realty to dirve their business. If that is the case, then Fitch Realty could also be doing the business as good as Adam Realty and in that case, the author would be suggesting wrongly to the author's friend.
Thirdly, the author takes pride in mentioning the average pirce of each house sold by Adam Realty and Fitch Realty to make the point that Adam Realty is superior than Fitch Realty. The most important point she fails to consider is the types of house sold by each firm. The author is assuming that both the firms are selling same type of houses and Adam Realty is capable of selling the house at better price than Fitch Realty. To ascertain this point, one should study different aspects of the house like the floor area, the locality, the age etc. Without studying these aspects one cannot come to a conclusion that Adam Realty sells houses at better price than Fitch Realty.
Finally, the author draws a comparsion of time taken to sell the property when listed with Fitch Realty ten years ago and when listed with Adam Realty 1 year ago which is totally unwarrented. The author still assumes that it would take longer time to sell the home if listed with Fitch Realty than when listed with Adam Realty based on an experience that happened ten years ago. There will definetly be change in the way the property was sold ten years ago and now. The author can draw a conclusion about Fitch realty by only finding out the time taken to sell the property when listed under Fitch Realty recently.
As mentioned above, we could see that the assumptions made by the author must be true in order for the claims made by the author to have any weight. If the assumptions failed to be true, then the claims made by the author could lead the readers into a pitfall.
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Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 25 15
No. of Words: 625 350
No. of Characters: 2863 1500
No. of Different Words: 241 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.581 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.203 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 189 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 103 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.214 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.52 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.366 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.583 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.185 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 61, Rule ID: WHERE_AS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'whereas'?
Suggestion: whereas
...tates that Adam Realty has 40 employees where as Fitch Realty has only 25 emplyees and t...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 383, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[8]
Message: The proper name in singular (May) must be used with a third-person verb: 'is'.
Suggestion: is
...the realty firms work is important. May be the technology that the Fitch Realty fi...
^^
Line 5, column 628, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[3]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...efficiany in Adam Realty might be lower as compared with that of Fitch Realty. If ...
^^
Line 13, column 163, Rule ID: SUPERIOR_THAN[1]
Message: The adjective superior is normally used with 'to'.
Suggestion: to
... the point that Adam Realty is superior than Fitch Realty. The most important point ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, if, look, may, really, second, secondly, so, still, then, third, thirdly, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 34.0 19.6327345309 173% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 28.0 13.6137724551 206% => Less relative clauses wanted (maybe 'which' is over used).
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 16.3942115768 30% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2942.0 2260.96107784 130% => OK
No of words: 625.0 441.139720559 142% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.7072 5.12650576532 92% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.0 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.27689983241 2.78398813304 82% => OK
Unique words: 251.0 204.123752495 123% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.4016 0.468620217663 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 893.7 705.55239521 127% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.59920159681 88% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 19.0 8.76447105788 217% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.5865459214 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.962962963 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.1481481481 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.62962962963 5.70786347227 64% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.293930364715 0.218282227539 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.101680231386 0.0743258471296 137% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0993938489188 0.0701772020484 142% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.171344173452 0.128457276422 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0788632561591 0.0628817314937 125% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.3 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 65.05 48.3550499002 135% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.33 12.5979740519 82% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.33 8.32208582834 88% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.5 12.3882235529 141% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 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.