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 constructio

In the memo, a vice president recommends using Zeta construction company in lieu of Alpha. He supports his recommendation with a couple of points: (1) the maintenance expenses were 50% lower than of the Alpha’s building last year; (2) energy consumption has been lower at the Zeta’s building as well. The author also urges us not to consider the higher costs of Zeta’s services, given the above-mentioned advantages. However, unless certain questions are answered, this recommendation cannot be evaluated and, therefore, considered cogent.

First of all, there is no information provided about the time those two buildings have been in use. What is more, we only know that the maintenance costs of Alpha’s building were higher last year, whereas it can be inferred from the memo that several years have passed since the construction finished (‘… every year since its construction’). Therefore, the last year’s difference in the maintanance cost can be an aberration due to an emergency or reconstruction. In order to evaluate the recommendation correctly the following questions must be answered - how long have the buildings been in use and what were the maintenance costs of the two buildings in previous years?

The next question that must be answered is what is ‘where are those buildings are located? ‘. This is a very important factor that can influence the expenditure level. Consider energy and water cost, the average salary of workers, price level - all of this undoubtedly affect what the company has to pay for its regional headquarters operation. The Zeta building could be located in the area with a longer daylight time, therefore, they did have to use as much energy as at the Alpha’s. Moreover, perhaps, the number of employees working at Zeta’s is lower, as a. result, the energy consumption is lower as well. What is more, overall maintenance costs could be influenced by the location as well. The higher level of life in the region of the Alpha’s building would entail higher salaries for the workers. Hence, we need to know the locations and their peculiarities before making any conclusions.

In the final analysis, the recommendation of a vice president is unconvincing as it stands as it lacks crucial information. Unless we have access to the answers to the above-mentioned questions which support the recommendation, it cannot be considered cogent.

Votes
Average: 6.1 (3 votes)
Essay Categories

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 14, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ore, considered cogent. First of all, there is no information provided about t...
^^
Line 5, column 626, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[3]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...result, the energy consumption is lower as well. What is more, overall maintenance...
^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, hence, however, if, moreover, so, therefore, well, whereas, as to, first of all, what is more

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2052.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 386.0 441.139720559 88% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.31606217617 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.43248042346 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.25236900341 2.78398813304 117% => OK
Unique words: 203.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.525906735751 0.468620217663 112% => OK
syllable_count: 633.6 705.55239521 90% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.1095160412 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.0 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.3157894737 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.57894736842 5.70786347227 98% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.224665911598 0.218282227539 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0679079601181 0.0743258471296 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.063668882023 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.13341443391 0.128457276422 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0733828441072 0.0628817314937 117% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 14.3799401198 96% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.58 12.5979740519 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.6 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 97.0 98.500998004 98% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.

One more argument wanted.

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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: 17 15
No. of Words: 384 350
No. of Characters: 1926 1500
No. of Different Words: 188 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.427 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.016 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.98 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 134 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 100 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 79 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.588 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.082 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.529 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.312 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.501 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.11 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5