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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 manager of the Happy Pancake House claims that replacing butter by margarine has not impacted customers as they seem to not distinguish the two. However, the two evidence that the manager presents as proof are not sufficient to explain the reactions of customers. The explanations are simply assumptions that do not indicate the real thoughts of customers.
Just because only 2 percent of the customers complained does not mean that the rest are satisfied with the change. The customers may have noticed that something was different or was unsafisfied but did not express their opinions. The manager did not indicate how and where the complaint was indicated, but the customers may have not used the platform or participated in the survey that the manager is talking about. As many people use rating apps or post on instagram regarding food or restaurant recommendations, they might have posted their thoughts there instead. Regardless of what they thought, the manager is clearly assuming what they really think.
The reports by servers are also mere assumptions that the customers do not mind or care whether they are served butter or margarine. However, many people refrain from complaining to servers about the taste of food or change in ingredient because they think it is rude and the servers do not have any authority to change anything. Customers may have not liked the change but considered it as a one-time change due to shortage of butter. If the servers have told them about the change and asked what they thought, the customers might have indicated their preference.
While the facts presented were weak and unrelated to the actual thoughts of customers, they way the facts were collected also undermine the arguement of the manager. As the manager only talks about the percentage, there is no way to know the entire sample size of the data. The data could have been limited to a small number of customers or collected before the change was implemented. This would undermine the value of the data. The way the servers attended to the customers is also problematic. Although not indicated in the passage, the customers may have been led to believe that they recieved butter, and therfore, thought they were having butter. In other words, there are many ways to explain why the customers did not complain.
To sum up, the claim of the manager is simply based on assumptions and weak facts, making his points useless. Unless the data is backed up with additional information, it cannot be good reason to think that 98 percent of the customers are happy with having margarine. Also, the customers at restaurants should be informed about the change before their thoughts were collected to evaluate the outcome of the new change.
Comments
Essay evaluations by e-grader
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 310, Rule ID: SMALL_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, use 'a few', or use 'some'
Suggestion: a few; some
...ta. The data could have been limited to a small number of customers or collected before the chang...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, may, really, regarding, so, while, talking about, in other words, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2286.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 459.0 441.139720559 104% => OK
Chars per words: 4.98039215686 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62863751936 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64384448501 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 210.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.457516339869 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 709.2 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => 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: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 36.8814551711 57.8364921388 64% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.909090909 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.8636363636 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.5 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.12635253922 0.218282227539 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0422741844827 0.0743258471296 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0674269065901 0.0701772020484 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0868292856357 0.128457276422 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0588723139272 0.0628817314937 94% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.6 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.86 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => 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
---------------------
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.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 310, Rule ID: SMALL_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, use 'a few', or use 'some'
Suggestion: a few; some
...ta. The data could have been limited to a small number of customers or collected before the chang...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, may, really, regarding, so, while, talking about, in other words, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2286.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 459.0 441.139720559 104% => OK
Chars per words: 4.98039215686 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62863751936 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64384448501 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 210.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.457516339869 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 709.2 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => 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: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 36.8814551711 57.8364921388 64% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.909090909 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.8636363636 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.5 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.12635253922 0.218282227539 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0422741844827 0.0743258471296 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0674269065901 0.0701772020484 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0868292856357 0.128457276422 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0588723139272 0.0628817314937 94% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.6 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.86 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => 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
---------------------
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.