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. In addition, the energy consumption of the Zeta building has been lower than that of the Alpha building every year since its construction. Given these data, plus the fact that Zeta has a stable workforce with little employee turnover, we recommend using Zeta rather than Alpha for our new building project, even though Alpha's bid promises lower construction costs."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In the memo, the vice president recommends that using Zeta rather than Alpha for our new building project. This might not be the case. Author comes to this conclusion based on several assumptions. However, there are lot of unwarranted questions that author need to look before making faulty conclusion.
First of all, Author assumes that building expenses for maintenance last year were same for previous years. Is the building expenses for maintenance of Zeta were less for every year? The author’s assumption is flawed because there could be several other reasons for the less maintenance expenses. It may be possible that Zeta has used more expensive material in the construction of building which require less maintenance. For comparison both sides should be same. Furthermore, how many people are working in Alpha and Zeta Buildings? It might be possible that the people working in Zeta are very few as compared to Alpha. For eg. if people working in Alpha building are using elevator more times a day than Zeta building. So the maintenance cost of Alpha will definitely increase. Without knowing further information the author's assumption is weak.
Secondly, Author assumes that energy usage of Zeta and Alpha building are same. Which types of equipment the buildings are using? For example, if Alpha building uses heavy load equipments. Then the energy consumption of Alpha building will be definitely high. Additionally, how many people work in the building? If there are more people in the Alpha building then it might be possible that they require more electricity. Unless the author gives more information about use of energy consumption, it hard to back the author's argument.
Finally, the author assumes that the company which build the building 10 years ago will give same result now. Are there any changes in the in the company? It might be possible that most of the people working in Zeta have been changed in 10 years. Hence, they may not give same results which they gave 10 years ago. Unless the information about how many changes are done in the company the author's argument is weak.
In the conclusion, Author's recommendation is based on several assumptions which make the argument weak. In short, the unanswered questions like how many people working in building? or are there any changes in company? make the argument poorly supported. For the argument to be reasonable, author should give answer to above questions.
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- 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 c 60
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 29 15
No. of Words: 401 350
No. of Characters: 1994 1500
No. of Different Words: 171 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.475 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.973 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.544 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 135 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 106 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 13.828 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.632 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.448 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.307 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.477 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.103 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 823, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...Without knowing further information the authors assumption is weak. Secondly, Author...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 313, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
..., how many people work in the building? If there are more people in the Alpha buil...
^^
Line 5, column 516, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...energy consumption, it hard to back the authors argument. Finally, the author assume...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 133, Rule ID: PHRASE_REPETITION[1]
Message: This phrase is duplicated. You should probably leave only 'in the'.
Suggestion: in the
... same result now. Are there any changes in the in the company? It might be possible that most...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 316, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Unless” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...e results which they gave 10 years ago. Unless the information about how many changes ...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 390, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...any changes are done in the company the authors argument is weak. In the conclusion,...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 182, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Or
...ke how many people working in building? or are there any changes in company? make ...
^^
Line 9, column 219, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Make
...g? or are there any changes in company? make the argument poorly supported. For the ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, furthermore, hence, however, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, then, for example, in short, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 40.0 55.5748502994 72% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2055.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 401.0 441.139720559 91% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.1246882793 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.47492842339 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64313272153 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 177.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.441396508728 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 644.4 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 31.0 19.7664670659 157% => OK
Sentence length: 12.0 22.8473053892 53% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 29.0284747059 57.8364921388 50% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 66.2903225806 119.503703932 55% => More chars_per_sentence wanted.
Words per sentence: 12.935483871 23.324526521 55% => More words per sentence wanted.
Discourse Markers: 3.96774193548 5.70786347227 70% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 20.0 4.67664670659 428% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.174926043114 0.218282227539 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0567912632657 0.0743258471296 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0562394462135 0.0701772020484 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.108862782231 0.128457276422 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0251619749133 0.0628817314937 40% => 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: 9.2 14.3799401198 64% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.3 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.0 12.197005988 66% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.53 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.46 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 82.0 98.500998004 83% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 5.5 12.3882235529 44% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 6.8 11.1389221557 61% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.