The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants.
"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. Only about 2 percent of customers have complained, indicating that 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 cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine. Thus, to avoid the expense of purchasing butter and to increase profitability, the Happy Pancake House should extend this cost-saving change to its restaurants in the southeast and northeast as well."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
Although the argument provided by the business manager of Happy Pancake House might seem logical at first glance, it is based on assumptions that might not hold true. First, he provides no evidence of whether the number of complaints is reliable. Second, and related with the first question, the manager is assuming that not explicitly complaining means that customers have not noted the difference. Lastly, he asserts that avoiding the expense of purchasing butter yields to higher levels of profitability. In this context, more questions need to be answered in order to decide whether the managers suppositions are true.
Related with the first stated point, the manager asserts that only about 2 percent of the customers have complained. He continues the argument by saying that this number means that 98 percent are happy with the change. However, there are some answers that need to be addressed in this topic. How where this number collected? There was a policy instructing waiters to report complaints? How can they be sure that only 2 percent have complained? In addition, it is misleading to assume that people that have not complained are happy with the change. They might be unhappy, indifferent or happy. In other words, the manager cannot sustain the argument that people that have not express an opinion about the change are happy about the change.
Second, and in line with the previous aspect, in his argument the manager is assuming, once again, that people that have not complain cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term in an interchangeable way. However, this a strong assumption based in no evidence, but in a mere opinion. Conversely, people might have notice the difference but they don’t feel the need to share it with the waiter or with the restaurant administration. At this point, in order to support the position, the manager could make some experiments, such as questioning the customer whether he prefers margarine or butter. Another possibility is to bring a little margarine and a little butter and test which one is more used. Putting it in another way, the manager needs to answer whether people can or cannot distinguish margarine from butter using other tools that are not just if people are complaining or not.
Last but not least, if the aim of the action is to increase profitability, the manager needs to make more in-depth calculations. He is assuming that cutting butter will automatically yield to an increase in profit, but this might not hold true. If his first arguments are fallacious, then the ingredient change might have as a consequence a decrease in the customer numbers, leading to a decrease in revenues and, ultimately, to a decrease in profitability.
Therefore, before extending this cost-saving changes to all his restaurants, the manager need to answer more questions and be sure that his assumption are true. Otherwise, he could be making a wrong decision, losing clients and revenues.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 490 350
No. of Characters: 2415 1500
No. of Different Words: 211 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.705 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.929 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.703 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 178 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 129 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 86 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.6 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.085 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.68 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.277 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.471 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.092 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 126, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error -- use past participle here: 'complained'.
Suggestion: complained
..., once again, that people that have not complain cannot distinguish butter from margarin...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 197, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in an interchangeable way" with adverb for "interchangeable"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
...ter from margarine or they use the term in an interchangeable way. However, this a strong assumption base...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, conversely, first, however, if, lastly, second, so, then, therefore, in addition, such as, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2506.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 489.0 441.139720559 111% => OK
Chars per words: 5.12474437628 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70248278971 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82684906705 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 216.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.441717791411 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 774.0 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 49.5592736024 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.24 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.56 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.4 5.70786347227 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
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: 0.176496995869 0.218282227539 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0492618104185 0.0743258471296 66% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0538353240366 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0928987436029 0.128457276422 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.055148211288 0.0628817314937 88% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.42 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.2 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 112.0 98.500998004 114% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.