Argue 70
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."
In this memo, the vice president claims that the company should hire Zeta rather than Alpha for their new building project even though Alpha's construction cost is lower than that of Zeta. To bolster his argument, the president refers to Zeta's lower maintenance expense and lower energy consumption. At first, the argument may seem convincing; however, the lack of solid evidence makes me question the validity.
First, the president needs to provide concrete evidence of the inherent condition of the buildings built by Zeta and Alpha to evaluate the construction costs and maintenance expenses. The author admits that the building established by Zeta costs 30% more than Alpha and rashly dismisses unforeseen disadvantages of Zeta. However, with this fact, it can be argued that Zeta should not be preferred over Alpha. After all, costing 30% more may be significant, and it may be actually burdensome. In addition, the author states that Zeta's maintenance expenses were lower than Alpha's last year. It may be possible that the low maintenance cost of the Zeta building was only prevalent only for just one year. If Zeta's better performance in saving maintenance costs is temporary, the company should not use Zeta.
Second, the president needs to supplement the argument with more solid evidence on the lower energy consumption of Zeta compared to Alpha. It is plausible that the building constructed by Zeta composes of a marginal number of workers, and the working hours of this building are significantly shorter than that of Alpha. In addition, the weather conditions of the two regions where Zeta and Alpha constructed buildings are different. For example, Alpha's building is located in a boiling area, which eventually requires air conditioning more frequently than Zeta. Furthermore, the energy consumption difference between the two buildings could be insignificant. In this case, the company should reconsider using Zeta for the new construction project.
Lastly, in all likelihood, the company prefers low cost over good quality services such as low energy consumption and low maintenance cost of buildings. In particular, if the difference in the quality of service of Zeta and Alpha is marginal, but the price is substantial, the company better choose Alpha over Zeta.
By examining all the various angles and factors involved with the company's analysis of the two companies to select one of them for their next building project, it can be concluded that the author's argument is not valid. In order to bolster the argument, the author should provide information on the buildings' maintenance in the long run and the two buildings' inherent characteristics.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 426 350
No. of Characters: 2199 1500
No. of Different Words: 187 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.543 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.162 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.808 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 162 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 96 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.3 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.827 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.65 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.37 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.55 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.092 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 190, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...g project, it can be concluded that the authors argument is not valid. In order to bols...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 300, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'buildings'' or 'building's'?
Suggestion: buildings'; building's
...uthor should provide information on the buildings maintenance in the long run and the two...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, furthermore, however, if, lastly, may, second, so, after all, for example, in addition, in particular, such as
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 : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 31.0 16.3942115768 189% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2255.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 426.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29342723005 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54310108192 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88476259535 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 188.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.441314553991 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 697.5 705.55239521 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 12.0 4.22255489022 284% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.449804941 57.8364921388 66% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.75 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.3 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.6 5.70786347227 116% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.196657047553 0.218282227539 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0778045376129 0.0743258471296 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0587020193335 0.0701772020484 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.13217577381 0.128457276422 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0592630066653 0.0628817314937 94% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.4 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.53 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.