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 following argument is flawed for a number of reasons. Firstly, just because Adams Realty has more agents than Fitch, does not mean Adams’ Realty is superior; quantity does not equal quality. Secondly, Adams’ average home sales could be due to an outlier that heavily increased their average over that of Fitch’s. Lastly, the homeowners two different experiences with both companies which could be due to other variables than those influenced by the agencies.
Although Adams has 40 real estate agents compared to Fitch’s 25, Fitch’s agents could have more experience and competence. Even though more numerous than Fitch’s, Adam’s agents --- without proper training and experience--- would be inferior to an agency with decades of knowledge. If the homeowner could prove that Adam’s agents were comparable to that of Fitch’s then it would strengthen the advantage of quantity.
Every homeowner would like to sell their house at a reasonable price. Adam’s attractive home sale average of $168,000 has no merit without consistency between each of their clients. It is very possible that this high average could be the result of many small sales with a few scattered exceedingly large sales giving a higher average than that of the competitor’s. The homeowner should attempt to show consistency throughout all Fitch’s sales giving credibility in their high home sale average.
Finally, the homeowner states that he/she had two distinct experiences with which the speed that the listed home was sold and attributing it to the agency’s ability. When selling homes there are numerous other factors that influence the sale, like the house itself. Location, environment and neighbors are all factors that could heavily change how quickly a sale is made. Other economic factors include the housing market and bank loans. The homeowner needs to provide evidence that the two houses were in similar situations and the only real difference was the agencies he/she used.
If the homeowner wants to make a convincing argument, various factors need to be addressed and both the houses and agencies need to be placed in comparable scenarios.
Discourse Markers used:
['but', 'finally', 'first', 'firstly', 'if', 'lastly', 'second', 'secondly', 'so', 'then']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.27380952381 0.25644967241 107% => OK
Verbs: 0.130952380952 0.15541462614 84% => OK
Adjectives: 0.097619047619 0.0836205057962 117% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0357142857143 0.0520304965353 69% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0190476190476 0.0272364105082 70% => OK
Prepositions: 0.0928571428571 0.125424944231 74% => OK
Participles: 0.0309523809524 0.0416121511921 74% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.89648793057 2.79052419416 104% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0285714285714 0.026700313972 107% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.097619047619 0.113004496875 86% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0238095238095 0.0255425247493 93% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0166666666667 0.0127820249294 130% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2204.0 2731.13054187 81% => OK
No of words: 341.0 446.07635468 76% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 6.4633431085 6.12365571057 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.29722995808 4.57801047555 94% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.404692082111 0.378187486979 107% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.313782991202 0.287650121315 109% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.234604105572 0.208842608468 112% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.173020527859 0.135150697306 128% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89648793057 2.79052419416 104% => OK
Unique words: 186.0 207.018472906 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.545454545455 0.469332199767 116% => OK
Word variations: 58.9788397165 52.1807786196 113% => OK
How many sentences: 15.0 20.039408867 75% => OK
Sentence length: 22.7333333333 23.2022227129 98% => OK
Sentence length SD: 70.7714317755 57.7814097925 122% => OK
Chars per sentence: 146.933333333 141.986410481 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.7333333333 23.2022227129 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.666666666667 0.724660767414 92% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 3.58251231527 0% => OK
Readability: 54.1116324536 51.9672348444 104% => OK
Elegance: 2.14102564103 1.8405768891 116% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.38227459231 0.441005458295 87% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.153750466938 0.135418324435 114% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0777644603992 0.0829849096947 94% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.598807938665 0.58762219726 102% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.200901500125 0.147661913831 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.142410574008 0.193483328276 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.081759695898 0.0970749176394 84% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.299088707367 0.42659136922 70% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0493559278923 0.0774707102158 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.222032860207 0.312017818177 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0669742974511 0.0698173142475 96% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.33743842365 108% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.87684729064 29% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.82512315271 83% => OK
Positive topic words: 9.0 6.46551724138 139% => OK
Negative topic words: 2.0 5.36822660099 37% => OK
Neutral topic words: 3.0 2.82389162562 106% => OK
Total topic words: 14.0 14.657635468 96% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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: This is not the final score. 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.