Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 still ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead. Clearly, either these customers cannot distinguish margarine from butter, or they use the term "butter" to refer to either butter or margarine. Thus, to avoid the expense of purchasing butter, 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 one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument
The manager suggests Happy Pancake House restaurants should replace butter by margarine. However, the evidence offered by the author is insufficient.
The author claims that only a few customers have complained. However, the remaining customers may not like margarine, too. Because they are busy office workers and must grab a meal in a short time, and therefore they will not have enough time to finish the surveys. Furthermore, most people will not want to leave a negative about the restaurant, yet they will choose to response these questionnaires positively and extol this restaurant’s pros. As a result, more convincing information about customers’ favor is needed.
Also, we need to know about the accuracy of these surveys. If these surveys were based on a majority of this region, then we could totally believe the results of these surveys. However, if these surveys were only conducted by two hundred people, and there were more than two million people living in this area, and then the results of the questionnaires would not be convincing. Therefore, the author must provide more complete data about the results of these surveys, including the number of people doing these questionnaires, how much time they finishing these surveys.
The memo states that many servers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead. Nevertheless, these servers might cheat on their reports to acquire better performance assessments. For example, Happy Pancake House restaurants might give their servers more bonus because these servers provided some reports which the restaurants were expected. Thus, we need more compelling information about servers’ reports.
The author points out that avoiding the expense of purchasing butter could increase the profits. However, the profit margins may only two or three dollars, and this will not produce huge profits for these restaurants. Furthermore, the demand for margarine may decrease in the next couple of years, and the customers may return to ask for more butter instead of margarine finally. As a result, the author must present a more detailed data about the profitable possibility of using margarine, such as the difference of cost between butter and margarine.
To strengthen the argument, the author would have to provide more information as above mentioned.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 376 350
No. of Characters: 1947 1500
No. of Different Words: 183 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.403 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.178 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.623 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 147 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 112 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 63 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.041 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.318 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.592 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.147 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, furthermore, however, if, may, nevertheless, so, then, therefore, thus, for example, such as, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 19.6327345309 46% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 38.0 55.5748502994 68% => 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: 2024.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 376.0 441.139720559 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.3829787234 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40348946061 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79232521866 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 191.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.507978723404 0.468620217663 108% => OK
syllable_count: 627.3 705.55239521 89% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 47.1429740258 57.8364921388 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 101.2 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.8 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.25 5.70786347227 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.199807471719 0.218282227539 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0671850165889 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0657297949301 0.0701772020484 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.113459154246 0.128457276422 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0722650118033 0.0628817314937 115% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 44.75 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.92 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.39 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 92.0 98.500998004 93% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 12.3882235529 52% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.