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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 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 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 argument stated above is faulty for numerous reasons. The author rests the argument on a foundationless assumption that this recent change has administered for enough time to accurately represent the customer preference. Concluding that the public does not distinguish between margarine and butter or uses the term “butter” for either, based on the prior stated assumption is illogical.
Firstly, the argument fails to provide evidence to support the numerical data. To start, it is not mentioned how the statistics in the argument were collected. It is possible that the business uses self-reporting surveys to compile the numbers. During self-reporting surveys, individuals tend to be untruthful and may not be fixed on what they report. If this is the case the data discussed by the author is inaccurate measure of the population preference, rendering the numbers unreliable. Moreover, a percentage of the population is not equivalent to the number of people in the population. For example, if 2% of a population of 100 people complained about the change, that would mean that 98 people in the population did not complain. But if 2% of a population of a 1000 people voiced a complaint, then 980 people did not mention any opinions on the change. Because the total population of where this change occurred is not discussed, the argument is unjustified. On the other hand, if the author presented the number of total populations that was subsumed in this data, the argument would be more plausible. In either case, the method to measure the actual preference and authenticity of the declaration of customers would still be unmeasurable.
Going forward, the argument neglects to address other issues presented. Imagine there is a credible way of measuring the preferences of others, assuming most customers are happy with the new replacement is without reason. There is a possibility that those that do not actively voice their preferences to servers also do not agree with the change. Individuals may not be comfortable telling employees of their dislike towards the margarine. Meaning, just because those have not complained about the change does not mean they are happy with the change. Once again, the author assumes that those that complained about the margarine are the only people who have an opinion on the change. Provided that every customer had to report their opinion on the replacement, the argument would be more valid.
Lastly, the author makes many undescriptive statements. Take into consideration when the author states “many servers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead.” It is not mentioned where these specific servers are located. It could be that the servers that did not receive complaints where in an area that favor margarine over butter. In this case, the statement made in the argument would hold little to no value since it does not represent the wide public.
As a result of the countless unwarranted presumptions made by the argument, the author fails to compile a compelling case that margarine usage in their company is accept by the general population.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 516 350
No. of Characters: 2594 1500
No. of Different Words: 229 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.766 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.027 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.81 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 193 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 142 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 105 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 76 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.111 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.391 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.444 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.281 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.457 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.104 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
The argument stated above is faulty for ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...prior stated assumption is illogical. Firstly, the argument fails to provide e...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...tomers would still be unmeasurable. Going forward, the argument neglects to ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
..., the argument would be more valid. Lastly, the author makes many undescript...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...does not represent the wide public. As a result of the countless unwarranted...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 173, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'accepted'.
Suggestion: accepted
...hat margarine usage in their company is accept by the general population.
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, lastly, may, moreover, so, still, then, for example, as a result, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 23.0 13.6137724551 169% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 30.0 16.3942115768 183% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2672.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 516.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.17829457364 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.76609204519 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.91972913471 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 241.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.467054263566 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 847.8 705.55239521 120% => 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: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 41.6173040934 57.8364921388 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.769230769 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.8461538462 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.38461538462 5.70786347227 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0904319417254 0.218282227539 41% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0258604978852 0.0743258471296 35% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0272899999998 0.0701772020484 39% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0564438351089 0.128457276422 44% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0297948905635 0.0628817314937 47% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.76 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.43 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 126.0 98.500998004 128% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.