The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants."Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 im

Essay topics:

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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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.

While the explanations proffered by the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants may sound reasonable, a closer review shed light on some of the other possible, even contradictary, explanations.

To begin with, the manager asserts that most customers are happy with the change, citing that the restaurant only received complaints from 2 percent of customers. It is unclear, however, whether the number of customers has changed. In this case, an alternative explanation is that quite a large proportation of customers dislike margarine, so they simply switched to other restaurants selling similar products. Therefore, it is likely that the change from butter to margarine has considerably affected customers.

Additionally, being unable to distinguish butter for margarine or using the word "butter" to refer to either butter or margarine, the customers may not complain when they are buying margarine at the restaurant. But without concrete evidence, this does not reliably accounts for customer's behavior. For instance, we can not rule out the possibility that customers use the term "butter" because they are used to doing so, and they are clearly aware of the change in the restaurant, so they think using "butter" will not cause confusion. It is also probable that many customers are able to tell butter from margarine, but there is no need to be that clear, for both customers and servers know what they refer to. If the two are both available at the restaurant, some customers might be more precise.

Last but not least, there might be a small number of customers who really want to buy butter at the restaurant. When offered with margarine, they tend to think that the two are interchangable, and it is laborious to find another store offering butter, so they take margarine without expressing any dissatisfaction.

In sum, the business manager\'s explanations on people\'s reaction to margarine at Happy Pancake House restaurant is not totally impossible, but many different explanations can be given based on the facts in the memorandum. We cannot tell which reflects the fact until further information is available.

Votes
Average: 7.9 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 145, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...asonable, a closer review shed light on some of the other possible, even contradictary, exp...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 276, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[3]
Message: The verb 'does' requires base form of the verb: 'account'
Suggestion: account
...ncrete evidence, this does not reliably accounts for customers behavior. For instance, w...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 36, Rule ID: SMALL_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, use 'a few', or use 'some'
Suggestion: a few; some
... Last but not least, there might be a small number of customers who really want to buy butter...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 144, Rule ID: NUMEROUS_DIFFERENT[1]
Message: Use simply 'many'.
Suggestion: many
...staurant is not totally impossible, but many different explanations can be given based on the ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, may, really, so, therefore, while, for instance, to begin with

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 55.5748502994 77% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1839.0 2260.96107784 81% => OK
No of words: 341.0 441.139720559 77% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.39296187683 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.29722995808 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.21677220665 2.78398813304 116% => OK
Unique words: 184.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.539589442815 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 575.1 705.55239521 82% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Interrogative: 1.0 0.471057884232 212% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 61.1014546071 57.8364921388 106% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.357142857 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.3571428571 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.14285714286 5.70786347227 108% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.206003036268 0.218282227539 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0724347217704 0.0743258471296 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.069952822099 0.0701772020484 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.130569900286 0.128457276422 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0616257487006 0.0628817314937 98% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 38.66 48.3550499002 80% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.28 12.5979740519 113% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.35 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 98.500998004 77% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 79.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.75 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.