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.

Building new offices is necessary for a company, since expanding business is a crucial component in its well-being. As provided in the passage, Alpha and Zeta provides the necessary service. The author suggests that Zeta has done a better job and should be used for further projects, despite Alpha’s promise of decreasing future construction cost. Nevertheless, the author fails to provide convincing recommendation because the arguments are filled with flaws and holes.

First of all, the author implies that Zeta has lower energy consumption than that of Alpha since the new office buildings’ construction. It is not clear, however, whether this lower consumption is merely because of Zeta. Since the author fails to provide the discrepancy between the two regions where Zeta and Alpha build the office, other factors can contribute to the lower consumption. The population of the region for Zeta may have been lower than that of Alpha. The local authorities may also implement new regulations regarding energy uses for the well-being of earth. Unless the author provides reliable data about the two regions, the causality between Zeta and lower energy consumption would remain unclear.

Additionally, the author suggests that the cost of maintenance for Zeta is half that of Alpha. While lower cost may sound compelling, the author only state that the occurrence happened last year. It remains unclear, however, whether the cost also happened in the other years. A lower cost is insignificant if it occurs for a short period of time. Furthermore, the lower cost may not even be that significant if the expense for maintenance for Alpha is small or perhaps the smallest than other costs. To substantiate this argument, the author would benefit from giving additional information about the maintenance cost for Zeta and Alpha for the previous years.

Last but not least, the two buildings are said to have the same number of floor. It does not mean that the two buildings are identical in other aspects. For example, Zeta may have incorporated better design as well as hiring professional architectures to build the building. Zeta may also use strong materials, leading to a higher cost than Alpha’s. If this is found to be true, and the author makes detailed comparison about the strength as well as other qualities about the Zeta’s and Alpha’s buildings, then it is possible that overall, Zeta is better than Alpha.

To sum it up, in-depth analysis about other aspects such as the regions where the office buildings were built, budget statistics of Zeta and Alpha as well as the quality of each building may make the arguments more compelling. This is, of course, beneficial for companies who want to hire them.

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