15.The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants."Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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

In the passage author has informed about the replacement of butter with margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the south western United States . Author tries to conclude that this change is welcomed by customer as almost none of them complained. Though his claim may well have merit, the author presents a poorly reasoned argument, based on several questionable premises and assumptions, and based solely on the evidence the author offers, we cannot accept his argument as valid.

Primary issue with the author’s reasoning lies in his unsubstantiated premises. The arguer provides no reason behind the change from butter to margarine. Is it the cost of butter that increases or taste that leads behind this change. Secondly , the authors observation about the little impact on customer is confusing. Lacking information about the number of people surveyed it is impossible to assess the validity of the result. For example, it may be possible that very few people took part in the survey and author try to extrapolate the same result to whole customer base . Surely that results significant error in the assumption.

In the third place, author's conclusion regarding those customers who were happy with margarine instead of butter does not imply that they liked margarine or unable to detect difference between butter and margarine. However, the author provides no evidence to support this assumption. The author’s premises, the basis for his argument, lack any legitimate evidentiary support and render his conclusion unacceptable.

While the author does have several key issues in his argument’s premises and assumptions, that is not to say that the entire argument is without base. Like it may possible the margarine may have more food value than butter . So they accept margarine even if it tastes different than butter.

In sum, the author’s illogical argument is based on unsupported premises and assumptions that render his conclusion invalid. If the author hopes to change his reader’s minds on the issue, he would have to largely restructure his argument, fix the flaws in his logic, clearly explicate his assumptions, and provide evidentiary support. Without these things, his poorly reasoned argument will likely convince few people.