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 given paragraph, the president of Bower Builder states that they should increase the size of the family rooms and kitchens in all the homes they build and should make state-of-the-art kitchen to boost the sales and profits. He presents some evidence for his conclusion, however, the assumptions made and the evidence presented seem weak and not supportive enough to make such a critical decision for the construction company.
The president mentions about the national survey which revealed that the two most-desired home features are a large family room and a large, well-appointed kitchen. However, he says nothing about other features that plays a vital role while making the final decision while purchasing the home. Maybe the client would feel reluctant to pay the increased price, or maybe the client would prefer better build quality over the aesthetic of living room and kitchen. Also, the other features like the availability of a nice porch, parking space, nicely build bathroom, etc. maybe equally critical for the people while making a decision of a home. The argument made by the president entirely depent upon a shallow survey which neglects or forget to mention about other related factors. Thus, the assumptions based on that survey cannot be trusted for making such an important argument.
Furthermore, the president gives an example of their competitor Domus Construction that is selling houses with larger living rooms and well-appointed kitchens at significantly higher rates. This information looks very inadequate to influence a huge decision like changing the layout of all the new houses of the construction company. Maybe the houses built by the Domus Constrution were of better quality, with better built materials, better bathrooms, better parking space, etc. which eventually lured the clients to buy their houses at significantly higher prices. This cannot be concluded just by seeing the price and sales report. So, the assumption of the president looks weak to support his argument.
Apart from that, the president mentions about sacrificing the dining area to expand the area of living room and kitchen overall stating that their recent buyers did not need a seperate dining room for family meals. This assumption made based on the comments of their recent buyers looks bit more far fetched and and rather weak to support the argument made my the president himself. The decision of changing the house layout of the construction company require a deep cost-benefit analysis and simply can not be decided over some comments of recent buyers. It is only natural of the clients to look for their personal preferences, but to base the entire construction decision over their comment might turn counter-productive. To solve this problem, the construction company can rather develop some custommade sample projects for the clients while also holding their original plans.
Thus, the assumptions made my the president to support his argument seem weak and do not properly justify his claims. More reliable evidence are required. In lack of extra evidence, the argument of the pre
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 12 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 10 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 498 350
No. of Characters: 2567 1500
No. of Different Words: 234 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.724 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.155 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.655 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 194 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 137 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.714 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.757 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.476 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.514 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.074 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 158, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...and kitchens in all the homes they build and should make state-of-the-art kitchen...
^^
Line 7, column 309, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: and
...ecent buyers looks bit more far fetched and and rather weak to support the argument mad...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, furthermore, however, if, look, may, so, thus, well, while, apart from
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 8.0 19.6327345309 41% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2632.0 2260.96107784 116% => OK
No of words: 497.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29577464789 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72159896747 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74597249185 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 234.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.470824949698 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 797.4 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.4464980783 57.8364921388 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.434782609 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.6086956522 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.52173913043 5.70786347227 62% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.227292135574 0.218282227539 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.062446199213 0.0743258471296 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.10485765164 0.0701772020484 149% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.11137595488 0.128457276422 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0793146829794 0.0628817314937 126% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.3 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.46 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.46 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 98.500998004 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.