The argument put forth by the author is flawed on several grounds. It is his view that customers either do not distinguish between butter and margarine or use the word butter and margarine interchangeably. However, there could’ve been several other possible explanations which the author fails to take into picture.
To begin with, the author brings to the reader’s attention that only 2 percent of customers have complained regarding Happy Pancake House’s decisions to replace butter with margarine. Possibly the biggest flaw in his reasoning is that the author considers a relative figure to make his inferences. Relative figures such as percentages are highly unreliable as the sample size of such data is not known. Had the author made his conclusions on absolute figures the reasoning would’ve automatically been more convincing to any reader.
In addition to the above point, the author goes further to state that since only 2 percent customers have complained it means that 98 out of 100 people are happy with the change. Only a gullible reader would believe the logic behind this reasoning. To say that 2 percent customers have complained about the replacement of butter with margarine could easily mean that either the other 98 percent customers have not realized that such changes have been made or maybe they are unhappy with said change but have failed to bring it to the restaurant’s attention. Complaints from 2 percent of customers is not a strong indicator that the other 98 percent is happy with the change.
The author also mentions that servers have reported that a number of customers have not complained upon receiving margarine when they specifically asked for butter. The veracity and the reliability of the reports by these servers cannot be judged by a reader without further data. Maybe the customers who were served margarine instead of butter did not complain to the server but instead complained to the manager or any other concerned person and the same was probably never brought to the attention of the server or maybe the customers realized the apparent mishap with margarine and butter and did not eat the ordered dish. There could have been several possible explanations as to why the customers never brought it to the attention of the server and without a detailed analysis and a report on relating factors, any conclusion made could be faulty.
From the data provided by the author, a reader cannot make any effective opinions regarding the replacement of butter with margarine. Had the author provided additional data in terms of absolute figures and the reliability of the server reports, the reasoning behind the argument could’ve been strengthened. However, it would be naive for a reader to believe the reasoning put forth by the author on the basis of the data provided.
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 467 350
No. of Characters: 2323 1500
No. of Different Words: 192 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.649 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.974 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.624 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 179 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.944 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.295 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.556 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.359 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.586 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.078 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, may, regarding, so, then, as to, in addition, such as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => 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: 2391.0 2260.96107784 106% => OK
No of words: 464.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.15301724138 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.64119157421 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.83545920209 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 195.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.42025862069 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 758.7 705.55239521 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 72.8009505093 57.8364921388 126% => OK
Chars per sentence: 132.833333333 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.7777777778 23.324526521 111% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.11111111111 5.70786347227 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.25404445458 0.218282227539 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0845152208461 0.0743258471296 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0725259831843 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.147360708106 0.128457276422 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0663026027567 0.0628817314937 105% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.7 14.3799401198 109% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.89 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.87 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.