The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants.
"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. Only about 2 percent of customers have filed a formal complaint, 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 cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine. Thus, to avoid the expense of purchasing butter, the Happy Pancake House should extend this cost-saving change to its restaurants throughout the rest of the country."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The manager concludes that the customers of Happy Pancake House restaurants in southwestern United States are content with the substitution of butter with margarine and therefore recommends that this ‘cost-effective’ change be implemented in other branches of the restaurants across the country. He comes to this conclusion based on the feedback of southwastern United states customers and the report of staff in the restaurant. While this may be a valid claim, as it stands now, the author stands on three unwarranted assumptions which if not addressed diminishes its credibility.
Firstly, the manager assumes that the complaint from the 2% of customers in southwestern United States is indicative that the other 90% are satisfied with the product. This might not be the case. For example, those who didn’t give a complaint might have not been aware of the fact that a feedback mechanism was available. They could have been dissatisfied but related this only their family member of housmates. Also, the author refuses to address the manner in which the complaints were made. If it was in form of a survey, it is possible that it was carried out in a nonscientific approach or that the questions asked were made to channel the thoughts of the customers towards a particular direction, favouring the use of margarine over butter. If any of the above stated examples proves true, this means that the claim of the director does not hold water and as such should be disregarded.
Secondly, the author assumes that what worked for Happy Pancake House restaurants in south western United States can be replicated in the other branches across the state. This might likely be false. Take for instance, the people who patronized the company in south western United States might nor be comparable to customers in other states. The latter might have a high percentage of people who are allergic to butter and as such may not purchase products made from it. Furthermore, the cost of production of margarine in states other than south eastern United States might be higher than the cost of production of butter. If any of the above examples prove true, then the suggestion of the manager isn’t credible and as such should not be taken seriously.
Lastly, the author assumes that the fact that there were no complaints when those who asked for butter were given margarine means butter can be easily substituted. This may not be true. Probably, these servers lacked professional skills and disregarded some of the comments given by the customers. It could also be that those who were given purchased the margarine did so not for personal consumption, perhaps as a gift, and as such had no idea of the change. If any of these is the case, then the author’s claim is rendered invalid.
In conclusion, the manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants suggests the use of margarine over butter based on his conclusion that their customers will have no issue with it. This statement is however rifled with holes as shown above and must be addressed before further considerations can be taken.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 9 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 516 350
No. of Characters: 2507 1500
No. of Different Words: 223 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.766 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.859 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.684 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 172 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 120 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 90 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.435 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.899 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.826 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.286 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.286 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.039 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 538, Rule ID: IF_IS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
... on three unwarranted assumptions which if not addressed diminishes its credibilit...
^^
Line 4, column 254, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...ked professional skills and disregarded some of the comments given by the customers. It cou...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, while, for example, for instance, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2574.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 514.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.00778210117 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.76146701107 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.80005904645 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 227.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.441634241245 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 796.5 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.3675627993 57.8364921388 110% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.913043478 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.347826087 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.60869565217 5.70786347227 116% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.252439678503 0.218282227539 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0721498824873 0.0743258471296 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0966513454508 0.0701772020484 138% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.163631906881 0.128457276422 127% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0778532427341 0.0628817314937 124% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.07 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
---------------------
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.