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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 that the replacement of butter with margarine has had little impact on the restaurant’s customers makes a number of unstated assumptions regarding the fact that only 2 percents of the costumers complain, customers do not distinguish butter from margarine or customers chose to use the term ‘butter’ for both butter and margarine. Taken as a whole, these unwarranted assumptions makes the argument highly suspect. Indeed, if these unstated assumptions do not hold true, the argument totally falls apart.
The major leap in the argument is the assumption that since only 2 percent of the customers complain, the switch from butter to margarine had no effect on the customers. The sale trend needs to be evaluated to determine if the change had impact on the customers or not. The 2 percent customers that have complained might be the staunch customers that had long lasting relationship with the store. Some of the remaining customers that do not complain might have stop patronizing the restaurant because of this change. Thus, the percentage alone cannot be used to determine if the change had impact on the customers or not.
Furthermore, the 2 percent customers’ gripes might be efficacious if the real number behind this percent is googol. On the other hand, the 2 percent customers’ complaints might be ineffective if the total amount of customers is scant. Thus, relying on percentage without knowing the real value seems impolitic. Moreover, butters and margarines are slightly different in taste. Thus, a customer who is inured to using butter will definitely know when he is served margarine. Customers might chose not to complain when served margarines instead of butter because these customers have had the intention of not returning to the restaurant again. Thus, customers’ silence when served margarine rather than butter does not mean they are comfortable with the margarine.
Lastly, the claim assume that customers do not distinguish butter from margarine or refers to both butter and margarine as “butter”. This assumption is flawed as there might be other reasons the served customers have chosen not to complain. Though some customers might be comfortable with the margarine, majority of the customers will be displeased with the margarine and might have chosen remain mute with the intention of stopping to patronize the restaurant.
In conclusion, the argument that customers are satisfied with the restaurant’s shift from butter to margarine makes numerous unstated assumptions that seriously undermines its validity. Unless these assumptions are addressed, the argument falls apart. Thus, the restaurant might be making a major mistake by replacing butter with margarine when serving customers
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 430 350
No. of Characters: 2252 1500
No. of Different Words: 173 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.554 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.237 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.771 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 174 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 107 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 85 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.476 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.674 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.619 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.373 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.559 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.139 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 271, 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.
...nge had impact on the customers or not. The 2 percent customers that have complaine...
^^^
Line 3, column 398, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: Some
...ng lasting relationship with the store. Some of the remaining customers that do not complai...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 391, Rule ID: AFFORD_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the infinitive: 'to remain'
Suggestion: to remain
...ith the margarine and might have chosen remain mute with the intention of stopping to ...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, furthermore, if, lastly, moreover, regarding, so, thus, in conclusion, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2330.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 430.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.41860465116 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55372829156 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.92600655024 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 178.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.413953488372 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 703.8 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.2776680401 57.8364921388 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.952380952 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.4761904762 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.42857142857 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.137448918326 0.218282227539 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0579806056051 0.0743258471296 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.052426673566 0.0701772020484 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.10534969498 0.128457276422 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0253603994985 0.0628817314937 40% => 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: 14.3 14.3799401198 99% => OK
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: 14.16 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.71 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 98.500998004 85% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.