"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."
In this argument, the author of this article claims that the company is better to contract with the zeta company for their new building project. To justify her argument, she says that the building which is constructed by the zeta company needed lower expense for maintenance last year than the alpha company's and energy consumption of the zeta's building has been lower than the alpha's for ten years. also she says that there are little employee turnovers in zeta company. Careful scrutiny reveals that this argument has several logical flaws.
To begin with, citing that the maintenance fee of the building which was constructed by the zeta company is lower than the alpha's, she hastily assumes that although the cost for construction of zeta company is higher than alpha, contracting with zeta company is cost-saving. However, it might not be true. For example, the overall cost which includes maintenance fee and building cost of the building which zeta constructed could be higher than alpha's. if it is true, we cannot be convinced by this argument.
even if we admit the building constructed by the zeta company is more efficient, there is another wrong assumption. The fact that there is little turnover in zeta company is not relevant to how a company
can implement its job more fast and efficiently. Until she explains to us why she thinks the number of employees turnover can be an indicator of that a company's capacity, this argument is not cogent.
Finally, even if we admit other presumptions are not problematic, there is another problem. she wrongly assumes that the ability of zeta and alpha may be the same or similar, compared with ten years ago. Common sense tells us that ability of a company is not stable and it could be changed in so-called "fast-moving society". also the alpha's ability to construct building could be better than zeta's now. if she cannot explain why she thinks the two corporations' ability is the same as before, this argument has no ground.
To summarize, this argument is still dubious as it stands. To make this argument more persuasive, the author has to show us financial data about the total cost of two different buildings for 10 years and also have to explain the number of employee turnover can be related to cost saving. To rate this argument better, we must know that the zeta and alpha company's difference in ability is the same as ten years ago.
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Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 14 15
No. of Words: 411 350
No. of Characters: 1954 1500
No. of Different Words: 168 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.503 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.754 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.487 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 110 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 64 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 34 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29.357 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.173 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.643 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.414 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.637 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.243 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 401, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Also
...en lower than the alphas for ten years. also she says that there are little employee...
^^^^
Line 1, column 401, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: also,
...en lower than the alphas for ten years. also she says that there are little employee...
^^^^
Line 3, column 454, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: If
...onstructed could be higher than alphas. if it is true, we cannot be convinced by t...
^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Even
...annot be convinced by this argument. even if we admit the building constructed by...
^^^^
Line 8, column 93, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: She
... problematic, there is another problem. she wrongly assumes that the ability of zet...
^^^
Line 8, column 338, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Also
...alled 'fast-moving society'. also the alphas ability to construct buildin...
^^^^
Line 8, column 338, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: also,
...alled 'fast-moving society'. also the alphas ability to construct buildin...
^^^^
Line 8, column 347, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'alphas'' or 'alpha's'?
Suggestion: alphas'; alpha's
...os;fast-moving society'. also the alphas ability to construct building could be ...
^^^^^^
Line 8, column 416, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: If
...uilding could be better than zetas now. if she cannot explain why she thinks the t...
^^
Line 10, column 289, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...turnover can be related to cost saving. To rate this argument better, we must know...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, however, if, may, so, still, as for, as to, for example, it is true, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 39.0 55.5748502994 70% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2011.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 411.0 441.139720559 93% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.89294403893 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.50256981431 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64006525114 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 174.0 204.123752495 85% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.423357664234 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 625.5 705.55239521 89% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 64.5757945441 57.8364921388 112% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.842105263 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.6315789474 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.10526315789 5.70786347227 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 10.0 5.25449101796 190% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.30513400233 0.218282227539 140% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.10057432729 0.0743258471296 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0900623412017 0.0701772020484 128% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.178126210392 0.128457276422 139% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0759924609865 0.0628817314937 121% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.4 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.08 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.79 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.