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.
In the argument, the author concludes that the new building project should be accomplished by zeta rather than alpha. To reinforce the conclusion, the author mentions zeta’s stable workforce and the building erected by zeta which have not only low maintenance fee but also less energy consumption. however, some questions should be discussed to better evaluate the conclusion.
On the ground of the fact that zeta’s construction’s maintenance expenses were half of those of alpha’s last year, the author makes an unfair assumption that the total costs of zeta’s building would be lower than those of alpha’s in the long run. however, we are not informed of the exact price of building’s maintenance fee constructed by alpha. it’s probable that the base number is such a small number that the difference of real costs on maintenance between alpha and zeta can be totally neglected. even though the costs cannot be ignored, the statistics in last year may not represent the current situation. Chances are high that the prices of materials and the salary of workers may rise dramatically in the region where zeta’s building is erected, contributing to significant increment on maintenance expenses. Therefore, more specific details need to be provided to validate the assumption.
Besides, the author states that zeta’s building consumes less energy than alpha’s, assuming that the company would save much money on energy consumption if choosing zeta for the new project. Nonetheless, some questions should be answered before we can draw the conclusion. In all likelihood, the office building accomplished by alpha is much larger and contains a much greater number of employees as well as more electric applications such as computers and air-conditions compared with zeta’s construction. Thus, less energy consumption in zeta’s building has nothing to do with zeta’s building skills, materials and so on. even if they have the same scale, there might be large differences on working time between two different regions, which means the total time of using energy in the two buildings may have great distinctions.
The author also concludes that zeta would perform better since its workforce is stable. however, it’s perfunctory to connect unchanged working structure with great ability and high quality of work. it’s possible that the little employee turnover in zeta means those employees have such terrible operational capability that they are not appreciated by any other company, leaving them no choice but stay at the zeta company. In addition, the changeless workforce, if saying honestly, may be responsible for the lack of fierce competitiveness, which would engender the idleness of employees and the absence of more creative ideas. As a result, the workers in zeta may not keep pace with the times or even be much worse than they were ten years ago. To authenticate the connection between stable workforce and high quality of construction, the author is supposed to offer more detailed evidence.
To sum up, the author’s recommendation on new project does not hold water. More testimony concerning maintenance expenses, energy consumption as well as workforce situation should be put forward.
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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: 16 15
No. of Words: 508 350
No. of Characters: 2639 1500
No. of Different Words: 241 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.748 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.195 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.798 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 199 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 149 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 111 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 72 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 31.75 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 20.058 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.875 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.352 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.574 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 304, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: However
...e fee but also less energy consumption. however, some questions should be discussed to ...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ed to better evaluate the conclusion. On the ground of the fact that zeta&apos...
^^^^
Line 5, column 273, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: However
... those of alpha's in the long run. however, we are not informed of the exact price...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 378, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: It&apos
...s maintenance fee constructed by alpha. it's probable that the base number is such...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 539, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Even
...lpha and zeta can be totally neglected. even though the costs cannot be ignored, the...
^^^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... provided to validate the assumption. Besides, the author states that zeta&apo...
^^^^
Line 11, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...uildings may have great distinctions. The author also concludes that zeta woul...
^^^^
Line 13, column 89, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: However
...m better since its workforce is stable. however, it's perfunctory to connect uncha...
^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 204, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: It&apos
...great ability and high quality of work. it's possible that the little employee tur...
^^^^^^^
Line 15, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...osed to offer more detailed evidence. To sum up, the author's recommendat...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, honestly, however, if, may, nonetheless, so, then, therefore, thus, well, in addition, such as, as a result, as well as, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2799.0 2260.96107784 124% => OK
No of words: 508.0 441.139720559 115% => OK
Chars per words: 5.50984251969 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.74751043592 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.10132282041 2.78398813304 111% => OK
Unique words: 252.0 204.123752495 123% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.496062992126 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 846.0 705.55239521 120% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.1775566621 57.8364921388 101% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.227272727 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.0909090909 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.81818181818 5.70786347227 119% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 10.0 5.25449101796 190% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.134357100117 0.218282227539 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0425545850649 0.0743258471296 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0407236329608 0.0701772020484 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0751243083771 0.128457276422 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.044218849639 0.0628817314937 70% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.97 12.5979740519 119% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.69 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 126.0 98.500998004 128% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.