The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of a large, highly diversified company."Ten years ago our company had two new office buildings constructed as regional headquarters for two regions. The buildings were erected by different constructio

The writer states that despite the fact that costs of the building construction by Zeta cost 30 per cent more than one by Alpha, the headquarter erected by Zeta consumes less energy and building's expenses for maintenance are lower. Thus the vice president recommends choosing Zeta construction company over Alpha one. This conclusion is buttressed by evidence which should be carefully scrutinized in order to give a comprehensive estimation of the soundness of the argument.

The first evidence which is given to us is that despite the fact that both companies had the same floor plans Zeta company spent on 30 per cent more. The author assumes that these plans means that costs should be equal but some unstated factors exist which perhaps led to the increase. This distinction may be explained by different locations of these headquarters. If building constructed by Zeta is situated in place where infrastructure is insufficient, for instance, the company had to use expensive means of transportation of materials for construction and equipment, the cost of construction may skyrocket. Consequently, we cannot conclude anything about the efficiency of these companies via this information.

The second evidence is that building which was created by Alpha consumes more electricity and last year costs for maintenance were significantly higher than those of Zeta. The writer tends to surmise that these differences are due to the quality of companies' work. However, other factors may impact on these expenses. Firstly, the likeliness exists that these high expenditures on maintenance are an aberration, for instance, the building has to install new video monitoring system to satisfy modern standards of safety or an accident has happened such as fire which requires additional money on maintenance. The author might have made the argument stronger had he given us data about expenditures on maintenance since this building were erected. Till we do not know this information, we cannot take this data for granted; Secondly, the higher expenditures on electricity may be due to building location, for example, than Alpha’s headquarter may be built in northern region where sunlight is weaker and weather colder, consequently, employees have to use more electricity.

Finally, the arguer asserts that new project should be given to Zeta; however, the writer has failed to prove that Zeta is superior to Alpha. Moreover, even if Zeta was better ten years ago, the today situation may not be the same. For instance, Zeta and Alpha may have new CEOs, strategies, equipment and staff, consequently, the ten-years ago experience is practically useless in respect to today's situation. Therefore the extrapolation of obsolete experience is unreasonable.

In conclusion, the writer does not manage to properly support his position and thus the recommendation is unreasonable and may not bring expected result.