The following appeared in a letter from the owner of the Sunnyside Towers apartment complex to its manager. "One month ago, all the showerheads in the first three buildings of the Sunnyside Towers complex were modified to restrict maximum water flow to one-third of what it used to be. Although actual readings of water usage before and after the adjustment are not yet available, the change will obviously result in a considerable savings for Sunnyside Corporation, since the corporation must pay for water each month. Except for a few complaints about low water pressure, no problems with showers have been reported since the adjustment. Clearly, modifying showerheads to restrict water flow throughout all twelve buildings in the Sunnyside Towers complex will increase our profits further."
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 owner in this prompt argues that modifying shower heads throughout all of Sunnyside Tower's apartment complexes will lead to increased savings. While this may hold true, the owner relies on a series of shoddy assumptions that do not provide adequate context needed in order to make a proper business decision. By evaluating the short-term costs of cutting down on water, he/she fails to measure potential long-term costs that could prove vital to Sunnyside Tower's bottom line.
To begin with, the owner of the Sunnyside Towers apartment complex does not thoroughly examine his customer demographic in his/her assumptions. The prompt states that their were only "a few complaints" regarding the water pressure. If the majority of tenants in the buildings were university students and this was done in the summer, it is likely that the manager will receive an abundance of negative feedback as the fall semester begins. It may be possible that this is not the case, and the tenants truly don't mind. But it is not enough to guide such a drastic business decision.
Furthermore, the owner does not consider the future impacts of cutting water pressure. In a recent poll from the Wall Street Journal, 15% of readers said a "nice, hot shower" is one of their simple pleasures in life. Cutting the water pressure may disrupt tenants' core, daily rituals. In turn, they may not lease from the same apartment again. The aphorism "the customer is always right" resonates with this situation; the owner may be sacrificing potential long-term business for short-term gains.
Expense reports related to water and plumbing were not presented. Water is typically seen as a small cost in business. Expenses related to restricting water flow - such as repairmen, new pipes and plumbers - might potentially cost more than the savings attributed to less water usage. If the difference in cost between normal water pressure and the reduced water pressure is negligible, it may cause future losses in the form of increased expenses. Proper costs related to the adjustments are needed in order to make a guided decision on whether to expand the modifications to the other buildings or not.
Assuming that cutting water supply will undoubtedly result in improved profits is presumptive. It may be true, but the owner does not make a persuasive, cogent argument backed by proper measurements. The assumptions used are too general to guide a proper business decision.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-03-10 | lebronjames | 83 | view |
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 519, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
... is not the case, and the tenants truly dont mind. But it is not enough to guide suc...
^^^^
Line 5, column 155, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...all Street Journal, 15% of readers said a 'nice, hot shower' is one of ...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, furthermore, if, may, regarding, so, while, such as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2088.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 399.0 441.139720559 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.23308270677 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.46933824581 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78330605925 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.538847117794 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 647.1 705.55239521 92% => 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
Interrogative: 0.0 0.471057884232 0% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 45.8873707424 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 99.4285714286 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.0 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.38095238095 5.70786347227 59% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => 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: 0.225452275665 0.218282227539 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0612824873796 0.0743258471296 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0623835383302 0.0701772020484 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.119526539423 0.128457276422 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0593032570245 0.0628817314937 94% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.05 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.85 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 108.0 98.500998004 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.