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"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 complained, indicating that 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 and to increase profitability, the Happy Pancake House should extend this cost-saving change to its restaurants in the southeast and northeast as well."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The author claims that the customers would not complain when they are served margarine instead of butter in southeast and northeast parts of United States. Stated in this way, the argument fails to acknowledge diverse pivotal aspects, on the basis of which it can be evaluated. It reveals several instances of poor reasoning and ill-defined extrapolation. It tries to persuade the reader by distracting the view of the situation by manipulating facts and by providing weak pieces of evidence. The author claims that as the number of customers who complained about the change is negligible, the recommendation will be a success. The author generalized this conclusion to a broader view of inattention towards other varying factors. Nevertheless, careful scrutiny of the evidence reveals that it provides a little credible support for the author's recommendation. Hence the argument can be considered uncorroborated and incomplete.
First of all, the author claims that 98 percent of the customers in the southwestern United States are happy with the change. This is merely a belief without much solid ground. For example, it is possible that during the test period, only a few customers ordered butter. It is also possible that the 98 percent of the people have not paid attention to the change made but certainly, they will when it will be a regular process. It is also possible that the customers who have ordered butter have not tasted it patiently or tasted a little to be able to notice the change. The author has not mentioned precise count of the customers. Hence the argument would have been much more convincing if it explicitly stated precise count of the customers who ordered butter but served margarine.
The author also claims that the change would be a success in southeast and northeast parts of the United States. This again is a weak and unsupported claim as it does not demonstrate any correlation between the type of customers in the two parts. To illustrate it further, it is possible that the customers in southeast and northeast parts are more sensitive towards the taste of butter and will definitely complain about the change at the first time. It will hamper the reputation of the Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the country as people will eventually know the profit-making methodology the restaurants have adopted. It is also possible that margarine is costlier than the butter in other parts of the States and this will reduce the profits made by the restaurants. If the argument had provided evidence about the costs of margarine and butter and also the type of people in other parts of the States, then it would have been much more convincing to the reader.
Finally, the author assumes that the people are not distinguishing the change or they use margarine as a substitute to the butter. However, careful examination of the assumption reveals that it provides a little plausible support and raises several skeptical questions. For example, the author must ask personally the customers if they have noticed the change as people might have forgotten to register the complaint because they have assumed that it has happened by chance and the restaurant has not done it intentionally. Without convincing answers to these questions, the reader is left with an impression that the recommendation is much of a wishful thinking rather than substantive pieces of evidence.
In conclusion, the author's recommendation is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster it further, the author must provide concrete pieces of evidence, perhaps by a reliable survey and detail study of other factors as well. Finally, to better assess the recommendation, it would be necessary to know more information about what type of people are customers in the restaurants present in different localities of the United States.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- better way: maybe the colors/sizes are similar...
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flaws:
the introduction is too long
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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: 28 15
No. of Words: 626 350
No. of Characters: 3157 1500
No. of Different Words: 241 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.002 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.043 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.848 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 252 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 175 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 121 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 91 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.357 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.269 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.607 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.308 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.474 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.07 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 838, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...vides a little credible support for the authors recommendation. Hence the argument can ...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 862, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...support for the authors recommendation. Hence the argument can be considered uncorrob...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 634, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...ntioned precise count of the customers. Hence the argument would have been much more ...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 20, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...eces of evidence. In conclusion, the authors recommendation is unpersuasive as it st...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, hence, however, if, nevertheless, so, then, well, for example, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 47.0 28.8173652695 163% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3218.0 2260.96107784 142% => OK
No of words: 626.0 441.139720559 142% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.14057507987 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.00199880112 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9255181267 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 247.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.394568690096 0.468620217663 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1009.8 705.55239521 143% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 4.96107784431 242% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.9717674649 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.928571429 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.3571428571 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.17857142857 5.70786347227 73% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.171291428849 0.218282227539 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0439697489687 0.0743258471296 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0545298521906 0.0701772020484 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0963179041317 0.128457276422 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0502705558178 0.0628817314937 80% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.83 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.13 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 135.0 98.500998004 137% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.