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 memorandum presented by the company's vice president recommends the company to prefer Zeta's construction company over Alpha. He provided several reasons to back up his conclusion that although the Zeta'a construction company has 30 percent more construction cost than Alpha, the maintenance cost is comparatively less than that of Alpha. Moreover, the energy consumption of Zeta's building is lower than the Alpha's building since its construction. However, while the conclusion drawn by the company's vice president might hold water, it rests on several unfounded assumptions that, if not substantiated, dramatically attenuate the argument's persuasiveness. Thus, the following points need to be addressed.
Firstly, the vice president has completely neglected the locations that the two buildings are situated. It might be possible that the Alpha's building is situated in the city's prime location and therefore, it must work 24x7. While, Zeta's building, on the other hand, is situated on the outskirts of the city that encourages it to consume less energy. As the Alpha's building is open 24x7, it will be consuming more energy because of various departments working simultaneously. For instance, the canteen of the Alpha's building must be open even in night hours for the employees working in night shift hence consuming more energy.
Secondly, the argument claims that Zeta's building overall cost of construction is 30% more than that of Alpha's building. But, the author has failed to provide pieces of evidence for this fact, as both the buildings have the same floor plan. It might be possible that the Zeta company is facilitating itself by having more commission on the raw materials and the labor than the Alpha. Even if, the maintenance cost and energy consumption are lower in rate, as the same floor plan is designed for both the buildings it should be feasible if the cost remains equal.
In addition, for future reference, the Alpha company still providing a lesser construction cost than the Zeta. Nevertheless, the author seems to stick to Zeta's scheme on basis of a few dubious reasons. The author has not even considered the other side and has simply diverged the readers with his assumptions.
A careful analysis exposes the loopholes present in the argument of the author. The arguments do not seem to be strong enough to buttress the conclusion of recommending Zeta company over Alpha for the construction of new building project because all the reasons provided by the author are dubious and questionable. Hence, the author must rethink and present a logical and foolproof solution.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 419 350
No. of Characters: 2150 1500
No. of Different Words: 190 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.524 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.131 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.83 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 160 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 129 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 90 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.95 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.46 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.65 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.332 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.55 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.093 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 632, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguments'' or 'argument's'?
Suggestion: arguments'; argument's
...bstantiated, dramatically attenuate the arguments persuasiveness. Thus, the following poi...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 175, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[8]
Message: The proper name in singular (Zeta) must be used with a third-person verb: 'companies'.
Suggestion: companies
...ess the conclusion of recommending Zeta company over Alpha for the construction of new ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, hence, however, if, moreover, nevertheless, second, secondly, so, still, therefore, thus, while, for instance, in addition, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2196.0 2260.96107784 97% => OK
No of words: 418.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.25358851675 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52162009685 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88894196356 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 199.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.476076555024 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 666.0 705.55239521 94% => 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: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.1333935452 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.8 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.9 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.1 5.70786347227 142% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.304079602545 0.218282227539 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0965055688051 0.0743258471296 130% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.072632921732 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.170247220208 0.128457276422 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0501191167878 0.0628817314937 80% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
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: 13.17 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.56 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => 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: 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.