The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants."Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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

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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"Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 impact on our customers. In fact, only about 2 percent of customers have complained, 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 do not distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine."

Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.

The author’s argument that customers have not been affected by the change from butter to margarine relies heavily on flawed assumptions that can be otherwise explained. In the argument, the author assumes that because customers have not complained about the change that they have not been affected by the change. Additionally, the author assumes that servers would report all complaints made by the customers in regard to the change. Lastly, it is assumed that the population that has experienced the recent change is representative of the entire customer population. The claims made in this argument are unsubstantiated and do not make a cogent case that customers are happy with the change.

First, the author reports that only about two percent of customers have complained about the change from butter to margarine and are therefore unaffected by the change. This assumption is unsubstantiated because is likely that a large population of customers that were affected by the change did not complain about it to the staff. The argument that customers have not been complaining could be substantiated if a survey were offered to the customers.

Second, the author says that many servers do not report complaints from customers. The statement that servers are not reporting complaints cannot be used to conclude that the servers are not receiving complaints. It may be alternately explained that the servers are not reporting all of the complaints received. Likewise, managers may not be reporting all complaints to corporate. Unreported complaints would cause the statistics presented in this argument to be skewed.

Finally, it is stated that the change from butter to margarine has only recently been introduced to a portion of their restaurants. The customer population that has dined at the establishment since the change may not be representative of the entire population. The statistics may change in the future as more customers become aware of the change. Additionally, it may be that that customers in that region of the country prefer margarine to butter but that other customer populations would be less accepting of the change.

While this argument may have some merit, with out ruling out other possible explanations it cannot be concluded that customers are happy with the change from butter to margarine. The argument could be strengthened if the author provided information regarding the procedures in place for reporting complaints. Additionally, the number of servers who claim to report complaints received would add strength to this argument. As it stands, however the argument is flawed for the reasons indicated.

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Comments

argument 1 -- OK

argument 2 -- not OK

argument 3 -- OK
--------------------

condition 1:
In fact, only about 2 percent of customers have complained, indicating that an average of 98 people out of 100 are happy with the change. //your argument 1 is OK

condition 2:
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 do not distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine.

//maybe margarine and butter have similar flavor and color, so it is likely that customer will not acknowledge that Pancake has chosen margarine to replace butter which triggers no complaints among customers. or : customers indeed can discriminate the difference between butter and margarine since they have disparate tastes. But the reason why those customers don't complain is because they like the flavor of margarine.

conclusion:
Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. This change, however, has had little impact on our customers.

//Since it is 'Recently', there is little impact on our customers. As time goes by, more customers will complain and there is a big impact.

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Number of Paragraphs: 5 5