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.
In the memo, the vice precident argues that the company should use Zeta rather than Alpha for their new building project to save the construction costs. He supplements his argument with the assumption that the . The argument seems convincing at first; however, the lack of evidence leads readers to conclude that the argument is flawed on many grounds.
To begin with, the vice president should provide more concrete evidence that the inherent conditions between the places where the buildings are built by Alpha and Zeta are similar. For example, it is possible that the Alpha building is located at the city with high tax rates, rendering the maintenance expenses of the building larger than that of the Zeta building. In addition, regarding the energy consumption rate, it is also possible that the number of workers are smaller for the Zeta building than for the Alpha building. In these cases, if the new building is prospected to be construected in the city with lower tax rate and have way smaller number of employees than that of Zeta and Alpha building, the consturction with Alpha than Zeta will likely to allow them to scrimp their budget. Therefore, the author should provide more concrete evidence regarding the inherent conditions between the construction sites.
Furthermore, more concrete pieces of evidence are needed on whether the current difference will last in the long run. This is because It is possible that the current situation, that the energy consumption and the maintenance costs of the Zeta building is lower than those of the Alpha building, might be an aberration. For example, it is plausible that the city where the Alpha building is built is suffering from the abnormal dust problem that will be resolve in the nearest future, forcing the Alpha building to temporarily turn on air cleaners and concomitantly raising the energy consumption rate of the Alpha building. In addition, it is also possible that the incresed maintenance expense for the Alpha building is just temporarily caused by an adverse economy and might decrease in the long run. Thus, the author should provide more information regarding the long-term tendency of the current siduation.
Finally, the vice president should provide cogent evidence that the benefits of Zeta building overrides those of Alpha building. If the Zeta building has less amenities for the employees, for example, It is possible that the work efficiency of the workers in the Zeta building is substantially lower than that of those in the Alpha building. This can make the overall benefits of the Alpha building higher than that of the Zeta building, since the higher working efficiency can contribute to increasing the overall profits of the company. In addition, it is also worth noting that the author did not provide the exact magnitude of the expense. For example, if the diffence in the expenses of the Zeta and Alpha buildings are marginal, the pros of the Zeta building regarding the maintenance costs will not be sufficiently substantial to offset the pros of the Alpha building regarding the construction costs. To elaborate the argument, the author should prodive more detailed information about the costs and benefits of the Alpha and Zeta buildings.
In short, the vice president's argument is not persuasive on many grounds. In order to bolster the argument, the author should provide more evidence that the inherent conditions of the construction sites are similar, the current tendency will remain the same in the long run, and the overall benefits of the Zeta building override that of the Alpha building.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 589 350
No. of Characters: 2955 1500
No. of Different Words: 195 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.926 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.017 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.617 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 213 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 178 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 129 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.048 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.676 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.714 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.423 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.423 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.17 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 207, Rule ID: THE_SENT_END[1]
Message: Did you forget something after 'the'?
...s his argument with the assumption that the . The argument seems convincing at first;...
^^^^^
Line 1, column 210, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
...is argument with the assumption that the . The argument seems convincing at first;...
^^
Line 4, column 154, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun amenities is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...lpha building. If the Zeta building has less amenities for the employees, for exampl...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, regarding, so, therefore, thus, for example, in addition, in short, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 22.0 13.6137724551 162% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 75.0 55.5748502994 135% => OK
Nominalization: 35.0 16.3942115768 213% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3015.0 2260.96107784 133% => OK
No of words: 589.0 441.139720559 134% => OK
Chars per words: 5.11884550085 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.92639038232 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68955067804 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 203.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.344651952462 0.468620217663 74% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 936.9 705.55239521 133% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 11.0 4.22255489022 261% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 66.109302744 57.8364921388 114% => OK
Chars per sentence: 143.571428571 119.503703932 120% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.0476190476 23.324526521 120% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.38095238095 5.70786347227 112% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.150482859367 0.218282227539 69% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0602890391263 0.0743258471296 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0534655048305 0.0701772020484 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.10609870586 0.128457276422 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0202863575763 0.0628817314937 32% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.7 14.3799401198 116% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.06 48.3550499002 89% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.0 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.