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.
In the memo the Vice President of the company recommends using zeta rather than alpha construction company for new building project based on the fact that earlier building constructed by zeta construction company has lower maintenance cost compared to the building constructed by alpha construction company, zeta constructed building has lower energy consumption and zeta construction company has stable workforce with little employee turnover. Following XXX questions need to be answered before the recommendation can be accepted and the new building project can be given to zeta construction company.
Firstly, it is important to know the number of employees occupying the buildings constructed by both zeta and alpha construction company. In case the number of employees occupying the building constructed by zeta construction company is way less than the number of employees occupying the building constructed by alpha construction company than one can figure out why the maintenance cost is low for the building constructed by zeta construction company. Also, it is important to know how many employees will be using the new building planned to be developed. In case the number of employees planned to use the new building is comparable or more than the number of employees currently using alpha constructed building than the new building might also have similar maintenance cost as alpha constructed building. If this scenario is proven to be true than the recommendation will not retrieve the expected result.
Secondly, it is important to know the location of the new building and the location of the previously constructed building by zeta and alpha construction company. It may be possible that the current zeta construction company constructed building is located at a place where the sun light is in abundance and hits the building directly during the day hours and hence not requiring the need for artificial lights to be turned on during the day. While the alpha company constructed building is located at a place where there is no direct sunlight and use of artificial lights is required during the day. Similarly, the new planned building might be in a location where the sun light is sparse and for whatever duration it comes it does not come directly to the building. If the above proves to be true then new building would require to use artificial lights during the day and hence energy consumption for the new building would be more than the existing zeta company constructed building and this would result in unanticipated outcome of the recommendation.
To conclude, the recommendation as it stands is seriously flawed and relies on unwarranted and unexplained assumptions. It is important to get answers to the questions above before the recommendation can be considered.
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: 14 15
No. of Words: 447 350
No. of Characters: 2325 1500
No. of Different Words: 153 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.598 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.201 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.037 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 172 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 142 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 114 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 70 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 31.929 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 14.641 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.643 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.45 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.643 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.178 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 813, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” 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.
...nce cost as alpha constructed building. If this scenario is proven to be true than...
^^
Line 9, column 832, Rule ID: ALLOW_TO[1]
Message: Did you mean 'using'? Or maybe you should add a pronoun? In active voice, 'require' + 'to' takes an object, usually a pronoun.
Suggestion: using
...be true then new building would require to use artificial lights during the day and he...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, hence, if, may, second, secondly, similarly, so, then, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 12.0 28.8173652695 42% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2366.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 447.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29306487696 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.59808378696 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.07873221561 2.78398813304 111% => OK
Unique words: 156.0 204.123752495 76% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.348993288591 0.468620217663 74% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 719.1 705.55239521 102% => 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: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 31.0 22.8473053892 136% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 98.5579700957 57.8364921388 170% => OK
Chars per sentence: 169.0 119.503703932 141% => OK
Words per sentence: 31.9285714286 23.324526521 137% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.85714285714 5.70786347227 103% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.23835370741 0.218282227539 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.106236493753 0.0743258471296 143% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0718841865791 0.0701772020484 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.151740876152 0.128457276422 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.091576196868 0.0628817314937 146% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 19.5 14.3799401198 136% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.01 48.3550499002 83% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.4 12.197005988 126% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.99 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.75 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 73.0 98.500998004 74% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 17.0 12.3882235529 137% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.4 11.1389221557 129% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.