.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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 notion that butter could be replaced by margarine is cogent at first glance. Because only 2 percent people complain about it and no one react different after served margarine. At the same time, the less complains show customers' poor ability to dinstinct them. Nonewithless, that argument is filled up with assumptions and logical mistakes. Hence, many other explanations could be induced. Three reasons would suffice to support that idea.
To begin with, the arguer incorrectly assume that the people who do not complain are happy with the change. It is hard to deny the possibility that these customers dislike to call into trouble. They may prefer to other restaurants rather than complaining. In this case, the low percent of complaining belies the fact that many customers hate that change. What is more, the above survey's vaildity is skeptic. The restaurant may carry that survey in a specific period when students or other groups are main customers. There is no doubt that different groups have different tastes. In this way, more evidence ought to be provided to make the argument more persuasive.
Moreover, the arguer fails to robust the point that customers are satisfy with serving margarine. The customers may in a harry and do not chose to waste too much time on it. Futhermore, it is equally possible that these customers trust the restaurant, enduring terrible tastes. These customers may bring restaurant a bad reception after served differnt dishes. Therefore, the arguer should glean more information to rule out other explanations.
Finally, even if the explanations above are ruled out, the arguer still fails to assume customers could not distinct margarine means they are satisfy with it. Some people may blance their diet with calculation the nurtrients ingested everyday. At the same time, they may get allergic after taking margarine. These people may not react difffernt because unwitted. However, they would complain after knowing what they ate. And knowing what were they ate is also a significant reliability.
To sum up, the argument is less cogent than seems. Collecting more information is essential to preclude other explanations and make the argument more persuasive.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 354 350
No. of Characters: 1806 1500
No. of Different Words: 190 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.338 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.102 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.593 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 128 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 94 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 13.111 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.113 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.258 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.448 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.06 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 67, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'satisfied'.
Suggestion: satisfied
... to robust the point that customers are satisfy with serving margarine. The customers m...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 120, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...serving margarine. The customers may in a harry and do not chose to waste too much time...
^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 143, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'satisfied'.
Suggestion: satisfied
...d not distinct margarine means they are satisfy with it. Some people may blance their d...
^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 235, Rule ID: EVERYDAY_EVERY_DAY[3]
Message: 'Everyday' is an adjective. Did you mean 'every day'?
Suggestion: every day
...ith calculation the nurtrients ingested everyday. At the same time, they may get allergi...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, moreover, so, still, therefore, no doubt, to begin with, to sum up, what is more
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => 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: 1872.0 2260.96107784 83% => OK
No of words: 354.0 441.139720559 80% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.28813559322 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.33761313653 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68328871036 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 192.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.542372881356 0.468620217663 116% => OK
syllable_count: 576.9 705.55239521 82% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 13.0 22.8473053892 57% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 24.4090653065 57.8364921388 42% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 69.3333333333 119.503703932 58% => More chars_per_sentence wanted.
Words per sentence: 13.1111111111 23.324526521 56% => More words per sentence wanted.
Discourse Markers: 4.88888888889 5.70786347227 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 17.0 6.88822355289 247% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0506705645786 0.218282227539 23% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0138148170605 0.0743258471296 19% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0239041630846 0.0701772020484 34% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0267960512762 0.128457276422 21% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.02553762916 0.0628817314937 41% => 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: 10.0 14.3799401198 70% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.28 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.4 12.197005988 69% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.51 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 6.0 12.3882235529 48% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 7.2 11.1389221557 65% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.