Five years ago, the local university built two new dormitories through different contractors: Aleph
Construction and Gimmel Builders. The buildings were nearly identical, though it cost Gimmel Builders
approximately 20 percent more to construct their dormitory. Aleph’s dormitory, however, has required
approximately 10 percent more in maintenance costs per year over the past five years. Therefore, to
construct their new dormitory with the lowest overall cost, the local university should hire Aleph
Construction.
The argument puts forth an interesting claim of selecting one construction contractor over the other. The stated reason compares the construction costs and maintenance costs for nearly identical dormitories. However, the argument lacks some considerations and as a result is not logically convincing. The argument although compares the construction costs, it misses if the circumstances were really same. The same goes for maintenance costs as well. Also, the expert does not account for changes that might have occurred over time (five years); all these factors seriously compromise the study's conclusion.
The largest leap in the argument is that changes over time are not considered. It might be the case that Aleph Construction used substandard building materials previously but now with time they have changed the strategy. They might have adopted a strategy where they would use high-quality raw material which will definitely have a higher construction cost but will have limited maintenance over time. It is essential to identify how these construction businesses have evolved over time before making a final call.
Further, it is prudent to ask why is the maintenance cost higher in one of the dormitory. It is very likely that it is due to the residents and not because of the construction itself. Maybe the living style of students in Aleph's dormitory is more extravagant and so they require more services, and hence the maintenance costs shoot up. From the given statement it is not evident if the building was the only factor that leads to a higher cost of maintenance.
Similarly, the reason for higher construction cost is not very obvious. It might be the case that Gimmel Builders had a tough terrain to work on as compared to the Aleph Cosntruction. As a consequence, construction costs went up to compensate for harder and more work required. Unless the reasons behind these differences are clear it is risky to main a conclusion.
While argument presents a compelling argument on deeper analysis one finds that there many logical flaws that should be addressed. To strengthen the argument it is necessary to attribute the varied differences to different factors like quality of material used, living standard of people and so on. It is also important to consider the changing behavior of companies over time. In the extreme case one of the companies might have been shut down or moved to some other business. If anything, deeper understanding of the statistics is absolutely necessary for making any further claim.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 411 350
No. of Characters: 2087 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.503 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.078 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.884 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 145 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.87 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.059 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.565 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.291 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.509 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.069 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 279, 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.
...sate for harder and more work required. Unless the reasons behind these differences ar...
^^^^^^
Line 9, column 1, 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.
...ar it is risky to main a conclusion. While argument presents a compelling argument...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 534, Rule ID: ABSOLUTELY_ESSENTIAL[1]
Message: Use simply 'necessary'.
Suggestion: necessary
...eper understanding of the statistics is absolutely necessary for making any further claim.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, however, if, may, really, similarly, so, then, well, while, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2134.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 411.0 441.139720559 93% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.19221411192 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.50256981431 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94777868684 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 212.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.515815085158 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 674.1 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 31.8617642745 57.8364921388 55% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 92.7826086957 119.503703932 78% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.8695652174 23.324526521 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.86956521739 5.70786347227 68% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.123703042455 0.218282227539 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0379738482046 0.0743258471296 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0319815968811 0.0701772020484 46% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0755807963414 0.128457276422 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0373845526382 0.0628817314937 59% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.3550499002 112% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.53 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.48 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
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.