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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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.
In the given text to maximize the company profits, the author recommends Happy Pancake House restaurants to replace the butter by margarine in their Southeast and Northeast branches, based on the lack of protest of the customers when this was done in the southwestern US by the company. While this recommendation could be accurate it heavily relies on a number of assumptions that need to be questioned before a decision is made.
Firstly, the author mentioned that only 2 % of the costumers complained, and concludes that the other 98% must be happy. This would only hold true if all the unhappy costumers complain, and also if the business hasn't silently lost unsatisfied costumers. Thus the question of how closely the happiness and lack of complaints are correlated needs to be answered.
The recommender also uses the lack of complaint from the customers when receiving margarine instead of butter they ordered as an argument that the customers are either unable to discern or don't know differences between margarine and butter, therefore the replacement being safe for the chain. However, this argument clearly jumps to conclusions, since it fails to account for a variety of factors that could constitute to the lack of complaints from the customers. One reason for silence could be the fact that the costumers not finding it enough of a problem to throw a tantrum, but it impacting their choices in the future. Also this could be the brand loyalty, that delays immediate reaction and makes customers more tolerable. This would mean that in the company might lose its image as small dissatisfactions pile up. Finally, it could be a cultural thing, as in some cultures direct complaints are not as accepted. Thus the question of how reliably the complaints reflect the dissatisfaction needs to be resolved in order for the recommendation to be made.
Another assumption is made by the author to extend the process to other parts of the US. It is a matter of the common knowledge, that while the same country the different States of the US can have significantly different traditions and tastes. So, the question arises of whether a strategy that might have worked in one region is guaranteed to succeed in another.
In conclusion, The recommendation introduces several questions, whether the uncomplaining costumers equal happy costumers, whether the lack of protest on getting a wrong meal is solely based on the inability to tell between ingredients, and whether results of one area of The US can safely be translated to others. All three need to be positively answered for the constructed argument to work.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 435 350
No. of Characters: 2141 1500
No. of Different Words: 222 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.567 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.922 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.883 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 154 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.588 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.262 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.765 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.304 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.437 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.089 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 3 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 288, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “While” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
... in the southwestern US by the company. While this recommendation could be accurate i...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 212, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: hasn't
...mers complain, and also if the business hasnt silently lost unsatisfied costumers. Th...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 255, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...nt silently lost unsatisfied costumers. Thus the question of how closely the happine...
^^^^
Line 4, column 190, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...stomers are either unable to discern or dont know differences between margarine and ...
^^^^
Line 4, column 626, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
... impacting their choices in the future. Also this could be the brand loyalty, that d...
^^^^
Line 4, column 921, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
... direct complaints are not as accepted. Thus the question of how reliably the compla...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, so, therefore, thus, while, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2190.0 2260.96107784 97% => OK
No of words: 433.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.05773672055 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56165014514 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94334073595 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 222.0 204.123752495 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.512702078522 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 676.8 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 71.8224454319 57.8364921388 124% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.823529412 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.4705882353 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.29411764706 5.70786347227 93% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.117265856293 0.218282227539 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0349587030716 0.0743258471296 47% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0578158775018 0.0701772020484 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0679587162182 0.128457276422 53% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0663549097339 0.0628817314937 106% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.1 14.3799401198 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.36 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.0 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 113.0 98.500998004 115% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.