The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants Recently butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States This change however has had little impact

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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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 writer of the argument concludes that replacing margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States has had little effect on their customers, in that the customers either use the term “butter” to refer to either butter or margarine, or do not complain when they are given margarine instead of butter. However, these scenarios can be accounted for in other ways as well, as discussed below.

Firstly, it is entirely possible that the customers liked margarine as much as butter; hence, they did not complain when they were given margarine instead of butter. In fact, they might consider both butter and margarine suitable for their meal, in which event the claim that this change has had little impact on the customers is justifiable.

Secondly, that the customers did not complain when they are given margarine can be accounted as well by the fact that maybe the customers were tempted to try a new thing as they were informed that the restaurant also offer margarine in their meal. Alternatively, perhaps they have never tried the margarine, and they intrigued to taste it. Therefore, it is alternatively explainable that the customers did not complain because the margarine sounded delicious, and they decided to try it.

Thirdly, another plausible explanation for this fact might has to do with the time pressure. Maybe the customers just intended to have a quick meal, and then attend their business. Or maybe they had to eat their meal fast in order not to be late for a meeting. If this is the case, they might consider it worthless to complain this change, and just simply neglect it.

In sum, the author’s conclusion that the change has had little impact on the restaurant’s customers can be accounted in other ways as discussed in the body paragraphs. The veracity of these alternative explanations cannot be evaluated unless the author supply evidence regarding each of the three alternative scenarios presented in the body paragraphs.

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Average: 6.7 (3 votes)
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might has to do with the time pressure.
might have to do with the time pressure.

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argument 1 -- OK

argument 2 -- OK

argument 3 -- not OK
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flaws:
No. of Words: 327 350
No. of Different Words: 148 200

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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 327 350
No. of Characters: 1620 1500
No. of Different Words: 148 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.252 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.954 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.664 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 111 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 85 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.154 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.621 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.692 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.377 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.647 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.073 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5