"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 author claims that customers of Happy Pancake House do not distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter of margarine because only 2 percent of them have complained. He or she offers an interesting argument, but it suffers from some logical flaws and gaps in evidence. While connections suggested are reasonable, there are many other possible scenarios that should discourage the author from being sure.
To begin with, the author assumes that customers are happy with the change because few of them have complained. Yet it is not logical to believe that rest of 98 percent of customers were happy with being provided margarine instead of butter. Many customers might be reluctant to waste his or her time complaining the problem even though they do not favor margarine. Or they might hesitate to make servers being abashed by complaining. What is more, the authors offers no detailed information about total customers considered when calculating the proportion of complains. Were only customers who are served margarine counted to calculate the proportion? Or were total customers of Happy Pancake House restaurants counted? If latter is applicable, the restaurants might have had a small proportion of foods that contain butter and most of customers who were served margarine had actually complained about the problem. Therefore without detailed information about who was considered when calculating the proportion and customer's truth feeling, we cannot conclude that most of the customers were happy with the change.
Secondly the author assumes that the customers can not distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to indicate butter and margarine because of the server's report that few of the customers do not complain. Yet there is no reason to believe that server always state true. They might change truth because of anxiety of being punished. Or they might just flatter by hiding the truth. We need more precise data other than just server's comments to conclude that the customers can not differentiate the margarine from butter.
Let us assume, though, that servers actually say the truth. Then we are prompted to ask why customers did not complain. Is it because they cannot discriminate butter? Or is it because they prefer margarine than butter? The customers might not complain not because they did not discern the margarine but because they were satisfied with the change. Or they might hesitate to complain and choose other options such as not re-visiting the restaurants. Therefore it is illogical to believe that customers can not differ margarine from butter just because they do not complain usually.
To sum, the author's assumption that the customers do not distinguish butter from margarine or they us the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine is logically flawed based on the above assumptions. To strengthen his or her argument, the author should closely examine all the conditions and other factors. In conclusion, the author's argument reflects unsupported claims without clear reasons or evidence.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 11 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 498 350
No. of Characters: 2567 1500
No. of Different Words: 199 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.724 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.155 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.643 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 199 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 150 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 106 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 76 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.444 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.617 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.481 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.322 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.498 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.187 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 830, Rule ID: MOST_SOME_OF_NNS[1]
Message: After 'most of', you should use 'the' ('most of the customers') or simply say ''most customers''.
Suggestion: most of the customers; most customers
...ortion of foods that contain butter and most of customers who were served margarine had actually ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 917, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Therefore,
... actually complained about the problem. Therefore without detailed information about who ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 450, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Therefore,
...uch as not re-visiting the restaurants. Therefore it is illogical to believe that custome...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 13, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...do not complain usually. To sum, the authors assumption that the customers do not di...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 336, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...s and other factors. In conclusion, the authors argument reflects unsupported claims wi...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, if, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, while, in conclusion, such as, to begin with, what is more
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 23.0 11.1786427146 206% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2616.0 2260.96107784 116% => OK
No of words: 498.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 5.25301204819 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72397222731 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70864405802 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 202.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.40562248996 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 812.7 705.55239521 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 8.0 1.67365269461 478% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 53.0880418931 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.8888888889 119.503703932 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.4444444444 23.324526521 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.2962962963 5.70786347227 75% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.279622206251 0.218282227539 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0899976496292 0.0743258471296 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0804130554106 0.0701772020484 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.169027590147 0.128457276422 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0628146422432 0.0628817314937 100% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.17 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.54 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.