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"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 above argument is made by the manager of a restaurant which replaced its butter with margarine. The author claims that the change had received no impact and goes on to cite some instances that support his claims. He mentions surveys that showed little to no displeasure among people regarding the change administered. Though the argument might look purposeful and stable at first glance, it soon becomes clear that it is based on assumptions that are yet proved to be warranted.
The author mentions that only 2 percent of the customers have filled complaints regarding the change the restaurant has adopted. No information is available whether these two percent of people are taken in a span of day or a month or year. Assume that it rains only 5 times in a year consequently. If a scale is taken for rain in a span of year, the number is quite small. But when the scale is reduced to a month and then later to a week this scale or percentage of days when it rained keeps increasing. Hence it is important to know the time span the surveys are taken across for better judgement. Here, it is assumed the survey that states that average of 98 people out of 100 are happy id true without any further details or questioning.
Adding to this, the author does not mention whether these 2 percent consist of regulars that constantly appear at the restaurant or new comers. Consider when there is a huge explosion of tourists on the day or time span the survey was taken. With the new comers dominating the regulars by huge amounts the survey cannot be held accountable as the change can only be noticed by the regulars. During these cases these 2 percent might include all the regulars who visit the restaurant and yet the numbers could turn up really small and insignificant. The assumption that 2 percent of the customers with no background data on their identity could determine the effect of the changes introduced by the restaurant is not bolstered properly.
Building on the above discussion, the nature of these complaints have not been made clear either. The author does not mention the criteria they used to separate the complaints that are based on the change in butter and other factors. In fact, no mention of complaints other than those 2 percent against the change in butter are made in the argument. The author stated that the server noted no visible change in the customers when offered with margarine instead of butter. It is possible that these customers rather than showcasing their displeasure, complained about the bad service that is provided to them. Complaints regarding change in taste of food could also have been made which might not directly point towards the butter change that occurred when not analyzed properly.
Continuing, It does not specify how many number of people made such request or whether they were paying attention to their food. Assume that only a single man ordered butter in the timeline this observation was noted and this man has failed to notice the difference. Equating the experience encountered by a single man to the entire customers that have visited in this timeline is not advisable.
Taking all the above-mentioned discussions into account, it is clear that the argument is based on more assumptions than clear evidence. More data is required to make reasonable conclusions and support the claims made by the business manager. Also it is suggested to acquire more concrete evidence to warrant these assumptions which would otherwise collapse the argument made.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 599 350
No. of Characters: 2876 1500
No. of Different Words: 265 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.947 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.801 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.574 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 210 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 144 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 98 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.393 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.321 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.393 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.266 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.266 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.08 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 505, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...f days when it rained keeps increasing. Hence it is important to know the time span t...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 37, Rule ID: MANY_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun number seems to be countable; consider using: 'many numbers'.
Suggestion: many numbers
.... Continuing, It does not specify how many number of people made such request or whether ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 244, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...he claims made by the business manager. Also it is suggested to acquire more concret...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, first, hence, if, look, really, regarding, so, then, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 28.0 13.6137724551 206% => Less relative clauses wanted (maybe 'which' is over used).
Pronoun: 51.0 28.8173652695 177% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 76.0 55.5748502994 137% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2923.0 2260.96107784 129% => OK
No of words: 599.0 441.139720559 136% => OK
Chars per words: 4.87979966611 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.94716853372 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6469419229 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 273.0 204.123752495 134% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.455759599332 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 916.2 705.55239521 130% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 27.5479174368 57.8364921388 48% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 104.392857143 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.3928571429 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.03571428571 5.70786347227 53% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.141615273528 0.218282227539 65% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0403067965166 0.0743258471296 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0443753889445 0.0701772020484 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0673669213042 0.128457276422 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0326426046572 0.0628817314937 52% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.2 14.3799401198 85% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.02 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.0 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 126.0 98.500998004 128% => 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: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.