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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 author here is trying to show how replacement of butter with margarine has not caused any ill effects and decline in demand in the chain Happy Pancakes but has misjudged some aspects, which are as follows:
Butter has been only replaced by margarine in the southwestern part of the country, the stores in these location may just give a false representation of the whole county. People in these parts may prefer margarine butter over in their pancakes, which may not be true for the whole country as a whole, people of the north or east may still like buttered pancakes over margarined pancakes. So, to see a clearer picture of this change the chain can provide options to customers all over the country to have margarine in their delicacy over butter. It can also be said that the customers in southwestern part of the country contribute to only a small percent of the total number of clients, so changing something based on their review may not be accepted by the major audience.
and has seen less impact on customers, doesn't give a clear picture of what kind of impact is being talked about. It can be said that it has had little positive impact on the customer review of the product or it can be stated that most of the people didn't have a problem with bitter being substituted. Hence, this statement is ambiguous, It can be improved by stating the kind of impact or customer review of the replacement. It is assumed that only 98 percent of people have not complained about the change, so are happy about it.Which is an ambitious assumption, it can be argued that they may not just care about the replacement or are busy thinking about other things while having pancakes. A review system can be set up, which will enable proper review of the change.
People may ask for butter, and be served with margarine can cause a huge problem, as someone who may be allergic to margarine can have his pancakes thinking it is made of butter. Which can cause a allergic reaction and lead to even demise if immediate action is not provided to him, this can harm the public relations of the company with the masses and can also lead to legal implications. Coming back, people can surely distinguish between butter and the counterpart, they just may not have enough time to do so while trying to enjoy their morning breakfast.
Although, the company is somewhat doing well in one part of a huge country, it cannot be contrasted to other parts so easily and it will take a lot of effort and time for people to accept margarine over butter, doing so in a deceitful way can cause legal complications and poor public relations. Clearly people distinguish between butter and margarine but are occupied in other things that they do not think it is important enough to care.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 11 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 493 350
No. of Characters: 2230 1500
No. of Different Words: 212 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.712 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.523 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.434 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 157 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 94 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 65 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 32.867 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.158 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.867 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.39 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.643 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.143 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 99, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this location' or 'these locations'?
Suggestion: this location; these locations
...tern part of the country, the stores in these location may just give a false representation of...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 2, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: And
... be accepted by the major audience. and has seen less impact on customers, does...
^^^
Line 5, column 41, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
... and has seen less impact on customers, doesnt give a clear picture of what kind of im...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 251, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
...t can be stated that most of the people didnt have a problem with bitter being substi...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 532, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: Which
...about the change, so are happy about it.Which is an ambitious assumption, it can be a...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 196, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...g it is made of butter. Which can cause a allergic reaction and lead to even demi...
^
Line 9, column 221, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in a deceitful way" with adverb for "deceitful"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
... accept margarine over butter, doing so in a deceitful way can cause legal complications and poor ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, if, may, so, still, well, while, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 26.0 12.9520958084 201% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2284.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 490.0 441.139720559 111% => OK
Chars per words: 4.6612244898 5.12650576532 91% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70488508055 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.51805971726 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 218.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.444897959184 0.468620217663 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 718.2 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 35.0 22.8473053892 153% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 77.3040973648 57.8364921388 134% => OK
Chars per sentence: 163.142857143 119.503703932 137% => OK
Words per sentence: 35.0 23.324526521 150% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.14285714286 5.70786347227 73% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.139202524437 0.218282227539 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0576846318413 0.0743258471296 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0430757311795 0.0701772020484 61% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0894646230866 0.128457276422 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0359928495807 0.0628817314937 57% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.0 14.3799401198 125% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.41 48.3550499002 92% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.34 12.5979740519 82% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.27 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 26.5 12.3882235529 214% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 16.0 11.1389221557 144% => OK
text_standard: 16.0 11.9071856287 134% => 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.