"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."
The vice president of a large, highly diversified company argues that we should use Alpha instead of Zeta 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 assumption that cost of building a new project in cheaper using Alpha is invalid. The fact that building cost of Alpha is 30 percent lower is ten years ago might not indicate the current condition. If Alpha increases its price much more significantly than Zeta does, then it is possible than new building project with Zeta becomes less expensive today. In addition, the two buildings ten years ago were erected in two different regions, and the author fails to provide detailed information about these two regions. It is possible that Zeta's headquarter is located in big city whareas Alpha's is in rural village, then it is natural that Zeta will cost much than Zeta, since it has higher labor and material fee. After adjusting all the variances in these two areas, the price could be similar. We are also not informed about the quality of two headquaters. If Zeta's building is more solid, while Alpha's requires frequent repairs, then the previous cost plus repair fee in Alpha perhaps exceed that of Zeta's.
Moreover, the author assumes that energy consumption of the Zeta building has been higher than that of Alpha building every year. The assumption seems valid at first glance, but is problematic after further investigation. What are the employees, number of offices, square feets in those two companies? Where are the two headquarters located? What are the service or operation of them respectively? It is plausible that Alpha building has less workers in the company, so that it will consume more energy. Furthermore, if Zeta's building in located in areas where winter is frozen and summer is much hotter than Alpha's building, then it consumes 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, Zeta is featured for its hyper-competitive company culture, so that employeers have to work diligently in order to remain in the companies. Those making relatively low profit and revenue will be fired. It is also likely that Zeta 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 assumptios 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, whether the two building ten years ago is comparable in todays' condition; second, whether the cause of energy consumption is only related to constructed company; third, what does workforce stability and employee turnover imply in making a decision.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
flaws:
the topic is to prove:
'we recommend using Zeta rather than Alpha for our new building project'
not 'Alpha rather than Zeta '.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 590 350
No. of Characters: 2985 1500
No. of Different Words: 273 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.928 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.059 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.693 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 218 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 173 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 112 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 69 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.692 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.6 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.654 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.291 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.417 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.086 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 439, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun workers is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...It is plausible that Alpha building has less workers in the company, so that it will...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, furthermore, if, moreover, second, so, then, third, thus, while, for example, in addition, to begin with, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 67.0 55.5748502994 121% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3060.0 2260.96107784 135% => OK
No of words: 589.0 441.139720559 134% => OK
Chars per words: 5.19524617997 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.92639038232 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78477573903 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 287.0 204.123752495 141% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.48726655348 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 957.6 705.55239521 136% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 10.0 2.70958083832 369% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 79.5791909555 57.8364921388 138% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.692307692 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.6538461538 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.46153846154 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.401131702645 0.218282227539 184% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.103004904262 0.0743258471296 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0919761678885 0.0701772020484 131% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.217942260861 0.128457276422 170% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0956977989692 0.0628817314937 152% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.18 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.86 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 154.0 98.500998004 156% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.