argument4 jingjing(kito)

jingjingtousUID: 2164820

TOPIC：ARGUMENT 4 - The following was posted on an Internet real estate discussion site.

"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 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."
WORDS：528         TIME：0:32:00          DATE：2006-1-29
提纲：
1 A的经济人比F多不代表效率更高，且工作时间长不代表工作更卖力，应该比较员工的学历，经验及销售记录，还有他们的忠诚度。
2 A去年的收入比F高不代表the previous years都高，且平均售价高可能是因为代理的房子好等原因。
3 作者的两个房子不一样所以卖出的时间当然不一样，但这能说明A更好吗？也没有说F是不是卖了a good price
4 过去推将来，错误假定分F的工作效率现在也低因为十年前低，没有考虑F这十年的变化，可能现在比A卖的更快（advertisement campaign）

The argument above is not cogent because the evidence which the author quoted to prove his suggestion that Adams Realty dose a better job than Fitch Realty is unsubstantiated and the comparison between the two real estate companies is statistically incomplete and unconvincing.

To begin with, the author hastily assumes that Adams works more effectively and efficiently due to its larger number of real estate agents and the longer time of their works than those of Fitch. However, these evidence are not necessarily indicate that Adams dose a more effective job than Fitch. As we know, the quantity of agents cannot determine the quality of the housing sales of the two companies. It is totally possible that the academic background, the experience and the efficiency of the employees of Fitch are superior to that of Adams, thus, without the concrete investigation of the backgrounds, the sale record and other advanced qualities such as the loyalty of the two companies, this evidence the author provided lends little credible support to his conclusion.

Moreover, the author emphasized that not merely Adams' revenue last year was twice as high as that of Fitch but also its average home sales. It seems a bit sound at my first glance, nonetheless, after my close scrutiny; I find that there are several fallacies on this point. First, Adams's comparatively higher revenue in last year does not mean that it is higher than that of Fitch all the time, without comparison of the sales revenue of these two companies respectively, we have sufficient reasons to believe that in the previous years, the income of Fitch has surpassed that of Adams. Second, how can we draw the conclusion that Adams' work is more efficient just through comparing the average home sales of them? It is ridiculous because there is a simple reason that the houses each of the companies sold are sharply distinct. Perhaps the houses sold by Adams are located in the center town or they are more carefully and luxuriously decorated than those sold by Fitch. Therefore, if this is the truth, then it apparently serves to lead the author's conclusion groundless.

In addition, the author's commits a big fallacy of incomplete comparison between the period of time upon which the two different companies spent selling his two distinct houses. Obviously, the house which the author committee Fitch for selling ten years ago may be inferior to the one that he listed with Adams to sell. Otherwise, the author's reference that the house sale service provided by Fitch is comparatively slow currently as the same as it did ten years ago based on the unsubstantiated assumption that all the conditions that affect the sale service of Fitch Realty still remain unchangeable within the ten years. However, it is entirely possible that Fitch implemented more effective advertisement campaign in the recent years, and therefore extended its market. Without considering and ruling out this and other possibilities, the author could not persuade me that the house-sale service of Fitch is still subsidiary to that of Adams'

Overall, the author's conclusion is unfairly based on several illogical and unsubstantiated comparisons, which lead his suggestion unconvincing at all.

发现一个问题，写argument时间比issue还紧凑，根本喘不过气来，有好多想批的错误都没来得及批，不过真的感觉自己提速了，感谢kito小组的每一位成员对我的鼓励，我会继续加油的，^_^