130) 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"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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.
In this memorandum, the business manager contends that the Happy Pancake House should replace butter to margarine throughout the whole country to save the costs. Although the argument may seem compelling at first, the unsubstantiated assumptions lead me to conclude that the argument is invalid on many grounds.
First of all, the business manager contends that most of their customers satisfy with replaced margarine because 98 percent of customers have not complained by a formal complaint. This argument assumes that if people do not complain by a formal complaint, it means that they satisfy with services. However, it is possible that the customers did not like margarine but they have not complained because of the way how to make a formal complaint is so complicated. Also, it is possible that they did not make any complaint but they would determine not to visit the Happy Pancake House again.
Second, the business manager believes that a number of customers cannot distinguish butter from margarine when they are given margarine instead of butter according to many servers’ reports. Another assumption the business manager makes in this argument is that servers’ reports are credible. However, the servers would be so busy that they could not record the reports precisely. Although the reports are correct, it does not mean that the customers’ preference over butter and margarine is indifferent. The customers may have thought that the restaurants serve only margarine, therefore they have not asked to give them butter, not margarine.
Lastly, the business manager argues that changing butter to margarine should be extended nationwide to reduce expense. This claim is based on the assumption that the cost of providing butter is bigger than the cost of using margarine and the customers of the rest of the country excluding the southwestern United States would not mind whether the restaurants use butter or margarine. However, even if the butter is more expensive than the margarine, if there is more expense to store the margarine than the butter, the Happy Pancake House’s income would decrease. Thus, replacing butter by margarine may do not lead the increase in income directly. Furthermore, the customers in other regions of the United States could be more sensitive to tastes. And they may prefer butter to margarine. Though southwestern customers do not care about whether the restaurants use butter or margarine, other customers, especially in the northeastern United States, may believe that pancakes should be eaten with butter.
In conclusion, the argument is unsound on many grounds. The business manager needs to rethink the aforementioned assumptions.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 425 350
No. of Characters: 2207 1500
No. of Different Words: 177 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.54 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.193 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.682 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 137 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.25 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.927 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.355 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.574 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.117 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
In this memorandum, the business manager...
^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e argument is invalid on many grounds. First of all, the business manager conte...
^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...o visit the Happy Pancake House again. Second, the business manager believes th...
^^
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ed to give them butter, not margarine. Lastly, the business manager argues that...
^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...pancakes should be eaten with butter. In conclusion, the argument is unsound o...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, lastly, may, second, so, therefore, thus, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => 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: 2281.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 425.0 441.139720559 96% => OK
Chars per words: 5.36705882353 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54043259262 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87866174213 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 186.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.437647058824 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 712.8 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.7307957187 57.8364921388 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.05 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.25 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.65 5.70786347227 99% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.258662319792 0.218282227539 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0818976296083 0.0743258471296 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0774771189996 0.0701772020484 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.143635813598 0.128457276422 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0556042107294 0.0628817314937 88% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.87 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.02 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.