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.
This homeowner argues that Adams Realty is a better realty because they hire more agents, sell at higher average price, and based on his own experience, sell listed properties faster. I argue that his supporting reasons and underlining assumptions are problematic.
To begin, the homeowner uses the number of full-time agents as an indicator for a realty’s superiority. That is just weak. Firms of all sizes can provide excellent services. Some firms choose not to stay small, for the many benefits a small firm brings to its owners and employees, such as a warm culture, the retaining of equity, the lack of bureaucracy etc. Some firms expand not because they have more clients to handle than what their current employees could handle, but because of the pressure given by external capital investors, or self-ego of the owners, etc. It could be a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with how well they do businesses. Therefore the number of full-time agents cannot be an indicator for superiority.
Next, he uses revenue and average sale price as support for Adams’ superiority, which lack important considerations. The number of agents Fitch has is about 60% of that of Adams, and many are part time. Yet Fitch brings in 50% revenue as that of Adams. Say, if Fitch has more than 10 agents work half-time or less, then it has a higher revenue per full-time agent than Adams. Revenue per full-time agent, although still imperfect, is a better metric for evaluating a firm. In addition, the average sale prices only imply different types of houses each firm is better at selling. It is not mentioned what type of house this friend plans to list. He should certainly choose a realty that is good at selling the type of properties most similar to his own, instead of choosing the one with higher average selling price.
Finally, the author quotes his own experience with the two realties, which are nine years apart. The author assumes that the market did not change throughout the nine years, and concluded that Fitch is worse than Adams based on that comparison and assumption. It is unfair to compare his experience with Fitch ten years ago with his experience with Adams last year. The market could be warmer last year. Both realties could grow and improve quite a bit from ten years ago. Therefore his argument does not hold water.
Based on the above analysis, the author would need to consider more aspects and data to draw conclusions about which realty is better. His current argument in support of Adams is weak and should not be taken by his friend.
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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: 23 15
No. of Words: 441 350
No. of Characters: 2070 1500
No. of Different Words: 217 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.583 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.694 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.389 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 140 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 91 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 58 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.174 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.832 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.304 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.275 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.486 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 664, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Therefore,
...to do with how well they do businesses. Therefore the number of full-time agents cannot b...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 198, Rule ID: EN_COMPOUNDS
Message: This word is normally spelled with hyphen.
Suggestion: part-time
...bout 60% of that of Adams, and many are part time. Yet Fitch brings in 50% revenue as tha...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 473, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Therefore,
...improve quite a bit from ten years ago. Therefore his argument does not hold water. Base...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, if, so, still, then, therefore, well, in addition, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2140.0 2260.96107784 95% => OK
No of words: 441.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 4.85260770975 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.58257569496 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.52706209906 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 227.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.514739229025 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 658.8 705.55239521 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 48.5943865071 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 85.6 119.503703932 72% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.64 23.324526521 76% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.88 5.70786347227 50% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.173539530237 0.218282227539 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0455628782411 0.0743258471296 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0416468999661 0.0701772020484 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.104382400275 0.128457276422 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.028067623656 0.0628817314937 45% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.2 14.3799401198 71% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 62.68 48.3550499002 130% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 12.197005988 71% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.55 12.5979740519 84% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.88 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.