"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."
In the memo, the author contends that Zeta is better suit for the new building project than Alpha for two reasons. On one hand, though with the same floor plans, Zeta spent more than Alpha on the construction, the maintenance cost and the energy consumption of the Zeta building are both lower than those of the Alpha building. On the other hand, with a stable workforce, Zeta is better. Convincing though the reasons may sound, additional information is needed to verify the recommendation.
To begin with, we need evidence to assess the total amount of money spent on the construction, maintenance and the energy. We cannot safely claim whether Alpha’s building costs more than Zeta’s only from the percentage given in the memo. If the construction cost is large enough, and compared with that, energy consumption and maintenance cost are so little that they can be ignored, then Alpha’s total cost is less than Zeta. On the contrary, if the expense for maintenance and energy consumption take up most percentage of the construction expense, then the recommendation is weakened.
Besides, granted that Zeta spent less money than Alpha on the building with better quality and electronic machines in the building, whether the environment in the two places are the same requires additional information. Considering the temperature, humidity, wind and other factors, these factors may contribute to the high cost of maintenance. If additional evidence emerges suggesting that there is more rain in the place where Alpha’s building is constructed, then of course the maintenance of Alpha’s building costs more. Evidence such as the number of lights is also needed. The same floor plan doesn’t necessarily indicate the same decoration and the same number of lights utilized in the building. With different materials and decorations, no one can assert that it is the construction quality that distinguishes the two companies.
Finally, if Alpha’s building exactly consumes more energy with low quality, more evidence is needed concerning the future strategy of both companies. The author arbitrarily equates the stable workforce with better service. Although Alpha changes its employees more frequently than Zeta, it is likelihood that Alpha company will dismiss those who don’t excel at the construction and hire more skilled workers to enhance the building quality and reduce the energy consumption. At the same time, if some workers who are lazy and poor in the technology still work in the Zeta without worrying about being dismissed, we can conclude that Alpha will quickly catch up with Zeta and even outweigh Zeta sooner or later.
To sum up, when it comes to whether Zeta can do a better job in the new building project depends on further information mentioned above. Only when we can fully and successfully get the additional evidence can we advocate the recommendation.
- All parents should be required to volunteer their time to their children's schools. 58
- The graph below shows the consumption of fish and some different kinds of meat in a European country between 1979 and 2004. 67
- It is primarily through our identification with social groups that we define ourselves. 58
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? All university students should be required to take history courses no matter what their field study is. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. 90
- The charts below show what UK graduate and postgraduate students who did not go into full-time work did after leaving collage in 2008.Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. 61
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 466 350
No. of Characters: 2358 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.646 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.06 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.752 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 165 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.3 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.461 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.346 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.543 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.118 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, finally, if, may, so, still, then, of course, such as, on the contrary, to begin with, to sum up, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 30.0 16.3942115768 183% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2465.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 464.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.3125 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.64119157421 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95812703738 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.463362068966 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 764.1 705.55239521 108% => 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: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 10.0 4.22255489022 237% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 55.9405711447 57.8364921388 97% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.25 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.2 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.75 5.70786347227 118% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.217590162429 0.218282227539 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0701176268482 0.0743258471296 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0681479461016 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.130449468206 0.128457276422 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0506266521952 0.0628817314937 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.2 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.81 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.55 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => 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?
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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.