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.
The vice president of a large, highly diversified company argues that we should use Zeta instead of Alpha for our contemplated new building project. To buttress his/her argument, the author cites the following evidences: first, the building constructed by Zeta costs 30 percent more to build with identical floor plans ten years ago; second, the energy consumption of the Zeta building has been higher than that of Alpha building every year; finally, Alpha has a stable workforce with little employee turnover. Though the issue has its own merit, due to lack of persuasive evidences and unstated assumptions, the conclusion in the memo is unsubstantiated.
To begin with, the fact that building cost of Alpha is 30 percent lower is ten years ago might not indicate the current condition. To fully evaluate the argument, we should be informed about the most recent price and price change of these two companies. In addition, the author only provides the maintenance fee of last year, which is limited to observe the pattern. If Zeta has higher expense in maintenance in most years except last years, we perhaps can assume that that outlier is not representative of the general trend of maintenance expenditure. Without answering current and expected maintenance fee, we cannot make strong comparison. The difference in price ten year ago could probably be explained by many external factors, such as location, labor and material cost. For example, Zeta is located in rural village whereas Alpha is in central business district. In this case, 30 percent more in building might be reasonable. After adjusting for variance, the cost of Zeta might even be lower than that of Alpha. Given Alpha's bid promises lower construction costs, the director neglect it readily without justifying grounded reasons. Thus, we doubt whether the decision is prudent.
Moreover, the author assumes that energy consumption of the Alpha building has been higher than that of Zeta building every year. The assumption seems valid at first glance, but is problematic after further investigation. What are the employees and number of offices in those two companies? Where are the two headquarters located? It is plausible that Alpha building has more workers in the company, so that it will consume more energy. Furthermore, if Alpha's building in located in areas where winter is frozen and summer is much hotter than Zeta's building, then it requires heating during the cold weather and use air conditioner more frequently during the summer. Without detailed information about these two companies, we are unable to draw any convincing conclusions.
Last but not least, the stable workforce and employee turnover does not necessarily indicate the quality of every construction company. For example, Alpha is featured for its hyper-competitive company culture, so that employees have to work diligently in order to remain in the companies. Those who make relatively low profit and revenue will be fired. It is also likely that Alpha will hire sophisticated experts usually to improve its quality of the company. Thus, in this case, Zeta might be more reliable with better quality even if it has unstable workforce.
To sum up, as it stands, the conclusion in the memo is relied on several questionable assumptions and unanswered questions that curtail the credibility of the argument. To further strengthen the memo, the vice president of this company is recommended to provide the evidences as follows: first, comparison from all respects of these two headquarters and the current maintenance fees; second, whether the only cause of energy consumption is constructed company; third, the importance of workforce stability and employee turnover imply in making a decision.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK. need to argue:
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.
we may say:
maybe 30 percent more cost by Zeta is a big money and it is much more than last year the building's expenses for maintenance + the energy consumption.
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK, also need to argue:
even though Alpha's bid promises lower construction costs
----------------
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 598 350
No. of Characters: 3072 1500
No. of Different Words: 283 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.945 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.137 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.759 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 228 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 184 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 121 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.357 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.113 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.607 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.265 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.439 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.084 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, furthermore, if, moreover, second, so, then, third, thus, whereas, for example, in addition, such as, to begin with, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3161.0 2260.96107784 140% => OK
No of words: 597.0 441.139720559 135% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29480737018 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.94303383012 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84826673937 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 299.0 204.123752495 146% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.500837520938 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 983.7 705.55239521 139% => 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: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 11.0 4.22255489022 261% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 78.3287485994 57.8364921388 135% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.892857143 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.3214285714 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.46428571429 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => 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: 0.25861124704 0.218282227539 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0638750308368 0.0743258471296 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0660169282859 0.0701772020484 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.148338899457 0.128457276422 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0693309926285 0.0628817314937 110% => 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: 8.83 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 157.0 98.500998004 159% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 19.0 11.9071856287 160% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.