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 written by the vice president of the company, they concluded that their company should recommend the Zeta company rather than the Alpha company for their new building project, even though Alpha promises a lower price. The VP came to this conclusion based on the fact that while Zeta’s cost initially was more expensive, the cost for maintenance in the last year and the energy consumption of Zetas building were both lower than that of Alphas building. However, to verify the VPs conclusion three questions need to be answered.
First of all, are the energy consumptions of the two buildings comparable? In other words, should the energy consumption of the Alpha building correlate to the Zeta? Perhaps Alphas building was located in a climate that is extremely hot, thus requiring more energy to keep the buildings climate cool for the employees. A building in the dessert would cost more to keep cool than a building in a more temperate climate. Another possibility is that the Alpha building has more employees in it. While both building were built with the same plans, if Alphas building contains more employees not only would energy need to be expended for them to do their work but again could add to the cost of cooling and/or heating the building. If either of these two cases are true it would significantly weaken the VPs recommendation.
Second, a question that needs to be answered is, are the maintenance costs of the buildings for the past ten years comparable? While the VP states that in the past year Zetas building had a lower maintenance fee he does not state what it was the previous nine years before. It is possibly that Alphas building had a significantly lower maintenance cost the previous nine years and it wasn’t until the tenth year that its expenses were raised. Another possibility is that the maintenance cost of Alphas building in year ten was due to circumstances outside of the companies control such as weather. If Alphas building is in a region where severe weather such as tornados or hurricanes are more common, that building runs the risk of having a higher maintenance fee outside of the builder’s control. If either of these scenarios is true, the recommendation by the VP is again significantly weakened.
Finally, a question that has to be answered is whether Zeta having low employee turnover is beneficial to the project? Perhaps the employees that currently work for Zeta are no longer the ones who built the first building and are significantly worse. This could lead to a poorly constructed building that costs more than originally estimated. Another possibility is that Alpha has a high turnover rate because they hold their employees to a higher standard. Perhaps Alpha fires employees who are under preforming and brings in employees who can do a better. If either were to be the case, it would significantly weaken the VPs recommendation.
The decision for the VP to recommend Zeta over Alpha has many flaws that prevent it from being the absolute choice. To better assert which company is best suited to build the new regional building more evidence would be needed in order to accurately support the claims that are made by the vice president.
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Comments
e-rater score 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: 24 15
No. of Words: 546 350
No. of Characters: 2622 1500
No. of Different Words: 222 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.834 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.802 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.668 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 175 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 132 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 99 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 58 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.75 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.18 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.317 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.447 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.114 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 278, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'buildings'' or 'building's'?
Suggestion: buildings'; building's
... thus requiring more energy to keep the buildings climate cool for the employees. A build...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 728, 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.
...of cooling and/or heating the building. If either of these two cases are true it w...
^^
Line 5, column 128, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “While” 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.
...ings for the past ten years comparable? While the VP states that in the past year Zet...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, however, if, second, so, thus, while, as to, such as, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 35.0 19.6327345309 178% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 22.0 13.6137724551 162% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2684.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 544.0 441.139720559 123% => OK
Chars per words: 4.93382352941 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.82947280553 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74030021024 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 228.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.419117647059 0.468620217663 89% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 819.9 705.55239521 116% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.2418015123 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.833333333 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.6666666667 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.29166666667 5.70786347227 75% => 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 : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.250603428168 0.218282227539 115% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0785084170385 0.0743258471296 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0554127073568 0.0701772020484 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.151576675322 0.128457276422 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.040664597832 0.0628817314937 65% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.61 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.66 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.