The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants:
"Recently,butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. This change, however, has had little impact on our customers. In fact, only about 2 percent of customers have complained, indicating that an average of 98 people out of 100 are happy withthe change. Further more, 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 do not distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine."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 author suggests that a recipe replacement from butter to margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants probably would lead to a financial benefit with no obvious customers’ complain.
The writer of the memorandum claims that only 2 percent of the customers complain about the recipe change and the others are satisfied with it. However, it fails to consider another explanation regarding the validity, scope and representative. For example, the survey questionnaire could not be fully-representative at all, maybe it just ask 50 people in the restaurants in a month, but there are actually 20,000 customers during that period. If the results of survey is not enough representative, then the credibility of the results would be problematic. Or the content in the survey has proclivity because the store owner wants to replace the butter with margarine. For instance, the survey of the question could be designed to ask their customers like this, are you satisfied with today’s dishes with margarine? If the customers leaves positive feedback, the store owner gives them a coupon for next usage. The author has to consider this kind of explanation to make the argument more cogent.
Even if the questionnaire is fully-representative, validity with adequate scope, the information reported from the servers could be questionable. It may be true, that the servers really care about the feeling of the customers and report to their manager honestly. Still, the servers could lie because they want to leave positive imagine or they just don’t want to write the report of the complains. Because most of cases, the business requires a fully detail description of the complaining case from customer, and the waiters don’t want to get involved in the routine stuff. The author needs to address this alternative explanation to make the argument more convincing.
Additionally, the writer mentions that the customer who couldn’t distinguish the butter and the margarine still use the term butter refer to either margarine or butter. That could be real, the customer don’t know the difference because he or she tastes like the same and the sense of the flavor is subjective. Nevertheless, the customer could just use the same term as before, he or she actually could tell the difference and just hide his or her angry because he or she plans to send this scandal to the news and let everyone know. Of this case, the consequence has a tremendous impact on the owner business, the author has to consider the possibility of the alternative explanation to make the business robust on the track.
In conclusion, the author needs to consider the alternative explanations mentioned above to make the argument more convincing.
Comments
e-rater score report
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: 19 15
No. of Words: 445 350
No. of Characters: 2218 1500
No. of Different Words: 206 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.593 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.984 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.932 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 157 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.421 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.308 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.32 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.485 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.132 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...tion to make the argument more cogent. Even if the questionnaire is fully-repre...
^^^
Line 4, column 408, Rule ID: MOST_SOME_OF_NNS[1]
Message: After 'most of', you should use 'the' ('most of the cases') or simply say ''most cases''.
Suggestion: most of the cases; most cases
...te the report of the complains. Because most of cases, the business requires a fully detail d...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 445, Rule ID: A_RB_NN[1]
Message: You used an adverb ('fully') instead an adjective, or a noun ('detail') instead of another adjective.
...se most of cases, the business requires a fully detail description of the complaining case fro...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... to make the argument more convincing. Additionally, the writer mentions that t...
^^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...make the business robust on the track. In conclusion, the author needs to consi...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, honestly, however, if, may, nevertheless, really, regarding, still, then, as to, for example, for instance, in conclusion, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 19.6327345309 61% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2290.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 441.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 5.19274376417 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.58257569496 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.04224569496 2.78398813304 109% => OK
Unique words: 211.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.478458049887 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 716.4 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.79772104 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.526315789 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.2105263158 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.63157894737 5.70786347227 134% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
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: 0.13583605554 0.218282227539 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0414986578355 0.0743258471296 56% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0636846435038 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0931862274649 0.128457276422 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.100462511512 0.0628817314937 160% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.12 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.25 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 97.0 98.500998004 98% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.