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"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House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 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 business manager recommends that Happy Pancake House restaurants should replace butter by margarine. However, the argument fails to consider the following possible alternative explanation.
The manager claims only 2 percent of customers have complained the change from butter to margarine. Nevertheless, it is probable that the author is optimistic to the investigation. There is a good chance that lots of customers have a tendency to complain the change, but they do not tell the waiters because of wasting time. It still has an alternative explanation that waiters just invested the customers feeling happy in this meal so as to avoid the boss asking them why the customers unsatisfied with the change. Doing investigation does not make the waiters get any profit, so they do not have any motivation to do the best.
In addition, even if the customers in the southwestern United States cannot distinguish butter from margarine, it does not represent that people living in the northeast United States cannot distinguish them. When people living in the northeast taste the food, maybe some of them owning some specific gene combination have the ability to detect the difference between butter and margarine. It may leave a bad impression to them and they will tell their friends and family member not to go to the restaurant because of the change. Therefore, the manager should do the same research on the northeast area for the purpose of making sure that most customers can accept this change.
Besides, even if people living in the southwestern and northeastern United States cannot distinguish the difference and do not show the anger to the restaurant. The dishonest behavior of giving customers the margarine when they ask the butter has a high possibility to bring some law problems. Some of them concern about the restaurant’s honest. When they feel cheated by this change without their permitting, they will indict the company in order to show their anger. Thus, the potential cost of this dishonest behavior needs to be considered. It may make the profits from cost-saving change disappear.
The claim is not convincing without ruling out the alternative explanations as above mentioned.
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: 18 15
No. of Words: 356 350
No. of Characters: 1814 1500
No. of Different Words: 177 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.344 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.096 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.778 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 139 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 95 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.778 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.678 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.305 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.541 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.1 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 435, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...he customers feeling happy in this meal so as to avoid the boss asking them why the cust...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
besides, but, however, if, may, nevertheless, so, still, therefore, thus, as to, in addition
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 5.0 19.6327345309 25% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 55.5748502994 77% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1863.0 2260.96107784 82% => OK
No of words: 356.0 441.139720559 81% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.23314606742 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.34372677135 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90824633245 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 180.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.505617977528 0.468620217663 108% => OK
syllable_count: 572.4 705.55239521 81% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 43.1009438183 57.8364921388 75% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.5 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.7777777778 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.11111111111 5.70786347227 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.157684467249 0.218282227539 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.050908475596 0.0743258471296 68% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0584605363393 0.0701772020484 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0886599074721 0.128457276422 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0607681257231 0.0628817314937 97% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => 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: 13.05 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.77 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 98.500998004 73% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.