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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 business manager for Happy Pancake House concludes that the change from butter to margarine has had little impact on customers because of their failure to distinguish between butter and margarine. Because correlation does not mean causation, other factors may contribute as to why customers have not reported dissatisfaction from the change of butter to margarines. In order to determine the validity of the argument, other factors must be considered. If not, the argument proves unwarranted.
One alternative explanation could be that not enough customers were surveyed to distinguish satisfaction from changes. The author states that only 2 percent of customers out of a population of 100 complained about the change. However, the population size may not be representative of the customer population from all of the Happy Pancake House Restaurants in the southwest. If only two restaurants exist in the southwest and a total of 200 customers dined in on a weekly basis, then it is safe to assume that most customers were satisfied. However, if there are 12 restaurants in the southwest where hundreds of customers dine in, then the sample size would need to be higher. Therefore, the author must provide a survey that questions the right amount of customers about the change from butter to margarine in order to accurately determine whether customers are satisfied or not. If not, then the survey shows no purpose in proving that people are satisfied.
Another alternative explanation could be that customers were unaware of the change. The author provides evidence that most servers report that customers do not complain when they are given margarine instead of butter. However, the author does not mention whether the servers inform the customers about the change. Therefore, there is a likelihood that if people knew they were given margarine instead of butter, they may react differently. To avoid this ambiguity in the argument, the author must provide evidence that servers are informing customers about the switch and whether or not customers respond for or against the changes.
Lastly, the author assumes that people can not distinguish between the terminology of butter and margarine. However, the alternative could be that people were not surveyed to determine the differences. The author provides evidence that only 100 people were surveyed and most were satisfied. However, it could be that the survey only provided two choices to answer whether people preferred margarine rather than butter. If the survey was open-ended, then it will allow for an open opinion. Therefore, people may express whether they prefer margarine or butter in detail and whether they know the difference or not. Furthemore, the author must provide evidence that the survey indicates whether people are aware of the difference between butter and margarine in addition to the switch. If not, then the argument holds no merit.
In conclusion, other alternative explanations can account for the reason why customers are satisfied with the change. Because other alternatives exist, the author must address them appropriately by providing substantiating evidence through preliminary surveys and reports of customer awareness upon changes. Only then could the argument be validated.
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: 27 15
No. of Words: 513 350
No. of Characters: 2705 1500
No. of Different Words: 198 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.759 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.273 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.77 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 222 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 163 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 111 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 87 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.242 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.324 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.324 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.093 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 314, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
...ntative of the customer population from all of the Happy Pancake House Restaurants in the ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 573, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...nforming customers about the switch and whether or not customers respond for or against the ch...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, however, if, lastly, may, so, then, therefore, as to, in addition, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2764.0 2260.96107784 122% => OK
No of words: 513.0 441.139720559 116% => OK
Chars per words: 5.38791423002 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.75914943092 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85086369767 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 203.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.395711500975 0.468620217663 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 877.5 705.55239521 124% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 47.0019700139 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.37037037 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.0 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.14814814815 5.70786347227 55% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.138576842891 0.218282227539 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0428888618192 0.0743258471296 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0819999897756 0.0701772020484 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0915977085433 0.128457276422 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0880787675203 0.0628817314937 140% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.98 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.78 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.