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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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.
In the memorandum, it is stated that customers do not distinguish butter from margarine, or they use the term ‘butter’ to represent both margarine and butter. The business manager from Happy Pancake House restaurants have come to this conclusion based on the lack of complaints by customers when they have received margarine instead of butter. However, before this argument can be properly evaluated, the assumptions must be assessed.
Firstly, is a lack of complaint equal to a lack of knowledge? In other words, can it be assumed that customers cannot distinguish margarine from butter because they have not complained? It is possible that the taste of margarine does not impact the taste of the dish ordered by the customer – perhaps using margarine in pancakes makes no difference while using margarine in waffles makes a significant difference. Further, it is a possibility that the change is not important to those customers who have not complained. Perhaps, Happy Pancake House has loyal customers who do not care about simple changes such as margarine in their dishes. It is a possibility that if other changes were made such as the amount of salt or sugar used there would be more complaints. If the manager could identify the impact of the change on the dishes that customers order, the original conclusion could be strengthened.
Secondly, how representative is the sample used to their entire population? The manager mentions that only two percent of customers have complained about the change. However, this may not be the case. The manager fails to mention the sample size which would provide a more substantial analysis of his conclusion. It is possible that the sample size may have been only fifty customers while Happy Pancake House has a customer base of over five thousand. With the given example, the sample size is not representative enough. As such, if this explanation has merit, then the conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Finally, does a lack of complaint equal consent? The manager assumes that 98 percent of its customers are happy with the change because they have not complained. However, this may not be the case. Perhaps, within this population, these individuals are not likely to make complaints due to their temperament. These people may be shy or introverts and have chosen the best option is to not say anything. If this explanation holds any value, the manager’s argument is diminished.
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now is insignificant as it relies on several unwarranted assumptions. If the manager can refute for the alternative explanations and offer more information, then it is possible to evaluate the viability of the conclusion.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 444 350
No. of Characters: 2226 1500
No. of Different Words: 194 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.59 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.014 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.812 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 157 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 125 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.76 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.095 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.68 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.284 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.471 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.035 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 6, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...al argument is significantly weakened. Finally, does a lack of complaint equal ...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, then, while, in conclusion, such as, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 46.0 55.5748502994 83% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2310.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 445.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.19101123596 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.59293186426 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.01789135386 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 201.0 204.123752495 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.451685393258 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 741.6 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 44.5116793662 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 92.4 119.503703932 77% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.8 23.324526521 76% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.68 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.212153908371 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0579785149502 0.0743258471296 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0701842890745 0.0701772020484 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.124993370063 0.128457276422 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0821557797448 0.0628817314937 131% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 45.76 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.53 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.67 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.