"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. Only about 2 percent of customers have complained, indicating that 98 people out of 100 are happy with the change. Furthermore, many servers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead. Clearly, either these customers cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine. Thus, to avoid the expense of purchasing butter and to increase profitability, the Happy Pancake House should extend this cost-saving change to its restaurants in the southeast and northeast as well."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The manager of Happy Pancakes asserts that it would be beneficial for the company’s profit to forestall the purchase of butter and sell margarine instead in the Northeast states of the USA. To bolster his claim, he cites the small percentage of complaints received against the replacement of butter with margarine in the southwestern US. Furthermore, customers who ask for butter do not complain when provided with margarine. Though, the action plan of the manager seems quite convincing at first glance but it is based on unwarranted assumptions and weak premises. Thus, the argument is too fragile to support the plan.
Firstly, the argument readily accepts the fact that people of the southwestern US and northeastern US are alike; however, no clear evidence has been provided for the same. The dearth of evidence makes it undependable as there might be several flaws to this assumption. For example, the inhabitants of the northeastern US might be too fussy and selective about the food ingredients unlike the people of southwestern. The people of northwestern might be preparing food items in which butter plays an important role and can not be replaced by margarine. They might be quite learned and particular about the food ingredients. In this case, the entire plan fails and it will also result in a decline in the profit of Happy Pancakes. If, the argument had provided details about the demographics of northeastern and southwestern US states: their food habits and lifestyle the plan would have been strengthened.
Moreover, the argument is based on statistical percentages claiming that only 2 percent of people are having a problem with the replacement. The argument stated in this way fails to make a stolid evidence. The argument fails to inform the number of people considered under this percentage calculation. To illustrate the point, if the report considers only the statistics collected from one shop out of, say, hundred shops. This number is quite small for forming an opinion of the entire customer base. The result of this report is distorted and the plan can not be formed based on this report. The argument needs to specify the people taken into consideration and also be assured that people are well aware of the complaint registering method. The people of southwestern might not be aware of the way they can register their complaints.
In addition to this, the argument relies on the reports from the servers; here again we are not told about the capacity of the servers or the way the servers are functioning making the claim unwarranted. For example, the server might be providing no option to the customers for complaining if they are not provided with butter. Therefore, assuming that people are unaware of the difference between butter and margarine is not justifiable. The server might be having too low capacity because of which the complaints are not recorded properly. The server might also be installed in areas where there are frequent power cuts because of which the complaints are not recorded. It is of utmost importance that the manager assures that the servers are properly maintained and are reporting correctly.
To sum up, the plan of stopping the sale of butter in northeastern provinces might not turn out to be a profitable one as the entire argument is based on many flawed assumptions. To strengthen the claim author needs to provide information on server conditions and the similarity between northeastern and southwestern people. The argument also needs to properly study the report and consider the number of people considered. The plan is too weak to be implemented at this stage and hence needs further clarity and evaluations.
Comments
e-rater score report
argument 3 is not correct
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 30 15
No. of Words: 607 350
No. of Characters: 3025 1500
No. of Different Words: 253 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.964 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.984 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.787 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 218 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 161 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 121 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 81 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.233 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.265 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.567 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.278 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.465 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.119 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 409, Rule ID: NODT_DOZEN[1]
Message: Use simply: 'a hundred'.
Suggestion: a hundred
...cs collected from one shop out of, say, hundred shops. This number is quite small for f...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 745, 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.
...re of the complaint registering method. The people of southwestern might not be awa...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, furthermore, hence, however, if, moreover, so, then, therefore, thus, well, for example, in addition, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 37.0 19.6327345309 188% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 80.0 55.5748502994 144% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3085.0 2260.96107784 136% => OK
No of words: 607.0 441.139720559 138% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.0823723229 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.96360453597 4.56307096286 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86750064941 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 268.0 204.123752495 131% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.441515650741 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 958.5 705.55239521 136% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 22.0 8.76447105788 251% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 30.0 19.7664670659 152% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 37.3750362319 57.8364921388 65% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.833333333 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.2333333333 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.6 5.70786347227 81% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 17.0 6.88822355289 247% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.199950803752 0.218282227539 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0557963255004 0.0743258471296 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.041347332589 0.0701772020484 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.120442962025 0.128457276422 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0356404146028 0.0628817314937 57% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
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: 12.18 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.35 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 143.0 98.500998004 145% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 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.