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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 following argument is flawed for the following reasons. Primarily would be assuming change of butter to margarine is the cause for customer satisfaction. The argument coming to a conclusion based fully on a server's analysis. Lastly, not providing the references to sources from which the numbers and percentages could be backed up by.
First fallacy observed was, assuming change of butter by margarine was the reason that only few complained and the rest were happy. It could be due to various other factors such as the restaurants ambience being better, the staff providing excellent hospitality. If the above information had been given then the argument would have a stronger stance.
Second fallacy observed was, trusting the server's report, that customers don't mind when margarine is given instead of butter due to which argument comes to a conclusion that customers can't differentiate between them. Servers shouldn't be the only means through which they decide the behavior of the customers, rather the restaurant should have backed it up with an one on one survey wherein relevant questions could be asked about conclusions made. Thus by doing so the argument would have been more appealing.
Third fallacy observed was, the percentages and numbers given in the argument are not referenced to any source thereby making it baseless. There is no valid source given to prove that only 100 people had come to the restaurant. Assuming that only 100 did come , there might be cases where customers just wander around the restaurant and leave without actually caring about butter or margarine. Information about the different types of people that came into the restaurant would help in giving the required weightage to the facts shown in the argument.
Thus the argument is flawed by various fallacies mentioned above. The argument would have made a compelling case if it were to carry out some of the suggestions provided under each fallacy.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 16 15
No. of Words: 318 350
No. of Characters: 1605 1500
No. of Different Words: 172 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.223 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.047 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.604 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 118 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 87 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 68 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.875 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.177 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.343 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.576 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.073 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 212, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'servers'' or 'server's'?
Suggestion: servers'; server's
...coming to a conclusion based fully on a servers analysis. Lastly, not providing the ref...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 186, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'restaurants'' or 'restaurant's'?
Suggestion: restaurants'; restaurant's
...ue to various other factors such as the restaurants ambience being better, the staff provid...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 264, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
... staff providing excellent hospitality. If the above information had been given th...
^^
Line 5, column 74, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...ting the servers report, that customers dont mind when margarine is given instead of...
^^^^
Line 5, column 185, Rule ID: CANT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'can't' or 'cannot'?
Suggestion: can't; cannot
...nt comes to a conclusion that customers cant differentiate between them. Servers sho...
^^^^
Line 5, column 226, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: shouldn't
...ant differentiate between them. Servers shouldnt be the only means through which they de...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 362, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...estaurant should have backed it up with an one on one survey wherein relevant ques...
^^
Line 5, column 449, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
... could be asked about conclusions made. Thus by doing so the argument would have bee...
^^^^
Line 7, column 260, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...taurant. Assuming that only 100 did come , there might be cases where customers ju...
^^
Line 9, column 1, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
... to the facts shown in the argument. Thus the argument is flawed by various falla...
^^^^
Line 9, column 138, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...compelling case if it were to carry out some of the suggestions provided under each fallacy...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, if, lastly, second, so, then, third, thus, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 12.0 28.8173652695 42% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1641.0 2260.96107784 73% => OK
No of words: 316.0 441.139720559 72% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.19303797468 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.21620550194 4.56307096286 92% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64810668714 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 174.0 204.123752495 85% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.550632911392 0.468620217663 118% => OK
syllable_count: 508.5 705.55239521 72% => 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: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 50.4676567219 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.5625 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.75 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.5 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 11.0 5.25449101796 209% => Less language errors wanted.
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0707353945642 0.218282227539 32% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0274769192605 0.0743258471296 37% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0211971183847 0.0701772020484 30% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0436855650991 0.128457276422 34% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0252926407522 0.0628817314937 40% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.82 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.13 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 71.0 98.500998004 72% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.