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. Furthermore, the energy consumption of the Zeta building has been lower than that of the Alpha building every year since its construction. Such data indicate that we should use Zeta rather than Alpha for our contemplated new building project, even though Alpha's bid promises lower construction costs."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The author makes an argument in favor of following the Zeta company for future constructions. They further compare the construction costs, maintenance costs and electricity costs of Alpha and Zeta buildings and concluded that Zeta has provided more profit than Alpha. The author's conclusions were made on major assumptions. When these assumptions are proved unwarranted, then their entire argument would fall apart.
First of all, the author mentions that these buildings were constructed ten years back at different regions. This implies that both the buildings are erected at different places by different companies using different resources. Even the economies experienced by the regions where these buildings were being constructed could be different. To illustrate, assume that the two regions where these buildings are erected were at Mumbai and New York. When the costs of construction for both the buildings are compared, it is obvious that it would be higher in New York due to the difference in economy and the difference of value of currency of the countries these cities reside in. Furthermore, the maintenance costs would be low in New York due to scarcity of resources and living necessities in Mumbai. Even if the construction companies are exchanged for these buildings there would be no difference in the operational costs the companies would demand. Therefore, further clarity is required on the regions these buildings are based. If they were held in the same area then author claim's could be considered to be true.
Adding to the above example, when the electricity bills of these buildings are compared, it is impossible to determine whose would be higher as it depends on the usage of electricity by the people residing in the buildings. If the building in New York has more people than the building in Mumbai, it is obvious that New York would produce more electricity bill. Furthermore the amount assigned by the nations government per watt consumption can also play a major role in determining the amount required to run the buildings with electricity. Therefore, the author's claim that the electricity consumption or costs are more in building constructed by Alpha needs more support and information about the number of people residing in these buildings and the assigned government costs for energy of those regions.
Though the author lauded the low costing of Alpha's construction for the new project, they never mentioned how these costing were measured. No decisive criteria is given for estimating the building costs through which it could be determined which company has made the best plans. Without this definite criteria any construction company could easily over demand or under demand the money required for construction. In case of under demand, it could result in an unfinished building. While in the case of over demand the company might lander the money or waste it. In either case, the need for systematic procedure to estimate the costs of construction is important which the author failed to provide.
Buildings are a necessity to run diverse companies. They provide the work place for millions of people and need to be carefully constructed. But the authors claims require more evidence and concrete information to further their conclusions. In fact, with no additional modifications or added data, it is impossible to estimate the worth of author's words and proceed with their ideas.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 13 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 551 350
No. of Characters: 2836 1500
No. of Different Words: 226 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.845 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.147 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.782 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 199 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 158 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 120 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 87 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.407 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.664 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.444 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.286 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.286 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.084 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 1032, 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.
... the regions these buildings are based. If they were held in the same area then au...
^^
Line 3, column 362, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Furthermore,
...rk would produce more electricity bill. Furthermore the amount assigned by the nations gove...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 401, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'nations'' or 'nation's'?
Suggestion: nations'; nation's
... Furthermore the amount assigned by the nations government per watt consumption can als...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 384, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ors words and proceed with their ideas.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, if, so, then, therefore, while, in fact, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2884.0 2260.96107784 128% => OK
No of words: 551.0 441.139720559 125% => OK
Chars per words: 5.23411978221 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84493438435 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84419983406 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 237.0 204.123752495 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.430127041742 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 895.5 705.55239521 127% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.5807196995 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.814814815 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.4074074074 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.11111111111 5.70786347227 55% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.277700124972 0.218282227539 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0868919137654 0.0743258471296 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.070124037919 0.0701772020484 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.143225647927 0.128457276422 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.093086034695 0.0628817314937 148% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.05 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.12 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 12.3882235529 52% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.