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

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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.

In this letter, the author provides some assumptions to pursue his friend to use Adams Realty for selling house. However, the argument makes a number of unjustified assumptions regarding the superior level of these two firms. Taken as a whole the unstated assumptions render the argument highly suspects. Indeed, if these unstated assumptions do not hold true, then the argument totally falls apart.

When concerning the number of agents in each firm, author implies that Adams has 40 real estate agents while Fitch has 25. Number of agents won’t affect the selling process. For instance, Fitch might use advance technologies to promote their market such as creating website for their selling lists or use social networks. Moreover, agents of Fitch might have more professional or work more effective while Adams have slowly and less effective agents. Therefore, based on number of agents in each firms, we can’t decide that Adams is better than the Fitch.

The author has given that in the last year, the revenue of Adams was twice as that as of Fitch. However, author didn’t provide any details about revenue. Revenue refers to all the money a company takes in making goods or providing services. It doesn’t mean the total profit. If the author mentions that home sales average of Adams is $168,000, whereas this average in Fitch is $144,000, the author did not provide details of what criteria were considered while calculate the average. It won’t decide the profit of the firm. Without accounting for such possibilities, the author can’t convince that Adams is the better place to sell home.

Moreover, the author compares the sale speed of homes in two leading real estate firms. However, the time period has huge different. Before ten years, demand for houses might vary from recent years. Therefore, to compare the speed of selling home, author can’t use different time period.

In conclusion, the argument makes a number of unstated assumptions that seriously undermine its validity. Unless these assumptions are addressed the arguments falls apart. I believe that the argument can be further strengthened by adding some information about the responsibilities of agents, the revenue of each of the agents in two firms and the process of selling home by Adams and Fitch Realty.

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Average: 5.3 (3 votes)
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Comments

argument 1 -- OK

argument 2 -- OK

argument 3 -- OK

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 378 350
No. of Characters: 1866 1500
No. of Different Words: 185 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.409 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.937 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.436 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 142 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 87 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 52 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.435 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.79 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.522 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.294 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.521 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.076 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5