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 different regions. The buildings were erected by two different construction companies — Alpha and Zeta. Even though the two buildings had identical floor plans, the building constructed by Zeta cost 30 percent more to build, and its expenses for maintenance last year were twice those of the building constructed by Alpha. Furthermore, the energy consumption of the Zeta building has been higher than that of the Alpha building every year since its construction. Such data, plus the fact that Alpha has a stable workforce with little employee turnover, indicate that we should use Alpha rather than Zeta for our contemplated new building project."
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 author claims that Company the development of a new building should be done by Company Alpha, and not Company Zeta. The author reaches to this conclusion based on some data of power consumption, maintenance cost, and the former company has stable workforce. The claim can possibly stand correct, but as for now there are several unstated assumptions that are made by the author in order to arrive at the conclusion.
Firstly, one of the reasons presented for choosing Alpha over Zeta is greater construction and maintenance cost involved in the building constructed by Zeta as compared to Alpha. Even though the author states that both the building have same floor plan, there is no evidence about the material used by both the companies. It is possible that company Zeta uses a premium quality of raw materials, such as cement and bricks, for construction which would definitely yield a better outcome but, would eventually cost more. Furthermore, the author complains about the maintenance cost of building constructed by Zeta is higher than of Alpha. The author assumes that the usage of these buildings remains same and the higher maintenance cost depends solely on the construction factor. However, Zeta constructed building could have been used more, and thus require more maintenance comparative to Alpha constructed building which is lesser used. Without the evidence for above mentioned assumptions, the author conclusion does not hold water.
Secondly, author uses the energy consumption of both the buildings as a factor of deciding between the companies. The author believes that the higher energy consumption of the Zeta building is only because of the construction factor and fails to supply evidence for the number of people that are using both the buildings. If there are a greater number of people using Zeta constructed building that Alpha constructed building, it would lead to increased energy consumption. This number is not under that call for a construction company. If the author can state with proof that there are equal number of users for both the buildings along with other construction independent factors, and still Zeta building consumes more energy, this would support the author’s claim of selecting company Alpha over Zeta.
Finally, the author compares the stability of employee workforce and turnover as a factor in preferring Alpha over Zeta. There are no supporting facts and arguments to prove that lesser turnover will lead to a better quality of constructed building. The higher turnover could be possibly because Zeta wants higher skilled employees replacing the lesser skilled employees. Although this decreases the stability of the company, it might enhance the throughput of company Zeta. Hence, author’s assumption of stability and turnover being a factor of preference is weakened by the absence of evidence supporting the actual reason of increased turnover in company Zeta.
In conclusion, while the author’s preference of company Alpha over Zeta can have better results, but as the argument stands now, is undermined because of the several unwarranted assumptions that the author makes before landing at the conclusion. If the author can provide evidence to support his assumptions, then it would lead to a better comparison between Alpha and Zeta, and would strengthen the author claims of choosing either one.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 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: 535 350
No. of Characters: 2780 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.809 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.196 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.696 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 216 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 158 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 113 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 71 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.318 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.888 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.545 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.372 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.405 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.106 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 2 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 263, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...he former company has stable workforce. The claim can possibly stand correct, but a...
^^^
Line 1, column 273, Rule ID: MAY_COULD_POSSIBLY[1]
Message: Use simply 'can'.
Suggestion: can
...company has stable workforce. The claim can possibly stand correct, but as for now there are...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 242, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error -- use past participle here: 'floored'.
Suggestion: floored
...states that both the building have same floor plan, there is no evidence about the ma...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, hence, however, if, second, secondly, so, still, then, thus, while, as for, in conclusion, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 27.0 16.3942115768 165% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2846.0 2260.96107784 126% => OK
No of words: 535.0 441.139720559 121% => OK
Chars per words: 5.31962616822 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.80937282943 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77415923704 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 221.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.41308411215 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 878.4 705.55239521 124% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.5647731394 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.363636364 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.3181818182 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.40909090909 5.70786347227 112% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.126221693552 0.218282227539 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0537606468355 0.0743258471296 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0422568008905 0.0701772020484 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0845509166272 0.128457276422 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0479356404411 0.0628817314937 76% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.8 14.3799401198 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.87 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.25 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.