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 construction companies—Alpha and Zeta. Although the two buildings had identical floor plans, the building constructed by Zeta cost 30 percent more to build. However, that building's expenses for maintenance last year were only half those of Alpha's. Furthermore, the energy consumption of the Zeta building has been lower than that of the Alpha building every year since its construction. Such data indicate that we should use Zeta rather than Alpha for our contemplated new building project, even though Alpha's bid promises lower construction costs."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
It might seem logical, at first glance, to agree with the argument in the memo that the company should choose Zeta for their building program, because of less expense in maintenance and energy consumption in building it constructs. However, in order to fully evaluate this argument, we need to have a significant amount of additional evidence. The argument could end up being much weaker than it seems, or it might actually be quite valid. In order to make that determination, we need to know more than analyze what we learn.
Firstly, the evidence that the relation between the construction consumption, the maintenance expense and the energy consumption is significant. The vice president only demonstrate that Zeta requires half of the building maintenance expense, lower energy cost in comparison to Alpha, but whether these can offset the more construction cost that Zeta asks for? Zeta costs 30 per cent more than Alpha in construction cost, if this cost is much higher than the expenditure mentioned before, we can conclude that Alpha will be a better choice when considering overall costs. If this is the fact, the president's argument will be strongly weakened.
What's more, since the vice president mentioned that Zeta has a stable workforce with little employ turnover, we need similar data from Alpha. If Alpha has a equally stable workforce pool or even better, or Alpha's employ turnover is also puny, it will be a disadvantage for Zeta to be chosen as the right building construction company. Even granted that Zeta indeed has a better workforce quality than Alpha, we cannot draw a strong connection between the good workforce condition with a perfect construction consequence. Provide that Alpha's workers have longer working experience or had better skill training before, we cannot promise that Zeta will have a better performance than Alpha. We need the evidence that revels different aspects of the workforce condition of the two companies such like the average age of workers, average working experience of the workers. If it turns out that Zeta's workers are all in a bad condition, the arguer's suggestion will be weakened in turn.
Moreover, we are supposed to consider the construction style of the two company. Except expenditure and workforce condition, we also need the detailed evidence of the two companies' own building style and building standard. For example, we should check whether Zeta or Alpha has ever cheated in their building program. If Zeta's low construction cost is due to its unqualified construction procedures, it is unwise to think that Zeta indeed has a advantage over Alpha. We can also ask for the building pictures which they have taken part in, so we can be informed about their preference in building materials or the whole design standard the can master. whether Zeta's art preference matches the company's need or not will have an influence in the validity of the vice president's argument.
In conclusion, although the vice president provides some information to support his/her opinion, there are still problems with his/her lines of reasoning. Zeta may indeed be a good candidate, but we cannot logically draw this conclusion based solely on the information provided by the vice president. More evidence is needed to determine whether Alpha or Zeta should be selected as the new project's contractor.
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: 22 15
No. of Words: 548 350
No. of Characters: 2756 1500
No. of Different Words: 244 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.838 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.029 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.73 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 203 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 158 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 115 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 70 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.909 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.709 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.727 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.344 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.547 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.238 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...now more than analyze what we learn. Firstly, the evidence that the relation ...
^^
Line 3, column 599, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'presidents'' or 'president's'?
Suggestion: presidents'; president's
...overall costs. If this is the fact, the presidents argument will be strongly weakened. ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... argument will be strongly weakened. Whats more, since the vice president men...
^^
Line 5, column 3, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: What's
...rgument will be strongly weakened. Whats more, since the vice president mentione...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 158, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...d similar data from Alpha. If Alpha has a equally stable workforce pool or even b...
^
Line 5, column 938, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguers'' or 'arguer's'?
Suggestion: arguers'; arguer's
...workers are all in a bad condition, the arguers suggestion will be weakened in turn. ...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...uggestion will be weakened in turn. Moreover, we are supposed to consider th...
^^
Line 7, column 446, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...is unwise to think that Zeta indeed has a advantage over Alpha. We can also ask f...
^
Line 7, column 655, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Whether
...e whole design standard the can master. whether Zetas art preference matches the compan...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 391, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'projects'' or 'project's'?
Suggestion: projects'; project's
...a or Zeta should be selected as the new projects contractor.
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, firstly, however, if, may, moreover, so, still, for example, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 27.0 12.9520958084 208% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 48.0 28.8173652695 167% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 41.0 16.3942115768 250% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2818.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 546.0 441.139720559 124% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16117216117 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.83390555256 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.80078012452 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 259.0 204.123752495 127% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.474358974359 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 883.8 705.55239521 125% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 14.0 4.96107784431 282% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.516601266 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.52173913 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.7391304348 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.4347826087 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 10.0 5.25449101796 190% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.145562675152 0.218282227539 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0522638757315 0.0743258471296 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0462193444305 0.0701772020484 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0896306379895 0.128457276422 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0462347472423 0.0628817314937 74% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.94 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.62 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 133.0 98.500998004 135% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.