"Of the two leading real estate firms in our town---Adams Realty and Fitch Realty---Adams 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 hi

In the statement, the author argues that Adams Realty is superior to Fitch Realty. To support this conclusion, the author cites certain statistics about the number of agents, the revenue and the average home sales prices sold by Adams and Fitch last year. The author also provides anecdotal evidence involving her personal experience with the two firms. Close scrutiny of each of these facts, however, reveals that none of them lend credible support to the author’s assertion.

First of all, the argument is based on unwarranted assumption that the mere higher number of agents of Adams can stand for its superiority over Fitch and many agents of Fitch work only part-time. However, the author provides no evidence that there is correlation between the quantity of the agents, the number of their working hours and the quality of their work. Without such evidence, it is quite possible that the employees of Fitch are more expertise and educated than the employees of Adams, which means a smaller firms may be more effective than a larger one. Besides, the author does not provide any information about the number of agents of Adams work part-time. Thus, the possibility that employees of Fitch are more qualified casts doubt on the conclusion.

Secondly, the author assumes that the greater revenue and higher average home sales prices signifies the greater success of Adams. As there is no further information about the firms, we do not know whether the revenue is the net revenue or just the income of each firm. If the revenue is income, it is plausible that after subtracting the wages of employees and taxes the net revenue becomes less than Fitch. Moreover, the disparity in sales volume could readily be explained by other factors other than the sales amounts of the two firms. Perhaps Adams serves an area where properties are more expensive but poor qualities and Fitch is mainly in charge of less expensive and better qualities properties. Without ruling out such alternative explanations for the disparity of sales revenue of the two firms, the author cannot defend the conclusion based on such scant evidence.

Thirdly, for additional support the author points out that it took considerable longer to sell one of her homes in Fitch than it took Adams to sell another one ten years ago. However, she does not take into account there should exist essential differences between two houses, which might greatly weaken the comparison of them. Maybe the house sold last year might be favorable for buyers; the other one took longer time to sell might have some problems. Furthermore, the real estate market must have undergone a drastic change with the developing economic conditions during ten years. Consequently, the author cannot rely on her limited personal evidence to maintain the conclusion as time goes on.

To sum up, all the reasons cited by the author could not well support the author’s conclusion as she expects.