ARGUMENT(51)The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants.“Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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

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ARGUMENT(51)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“Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 who ask for butter 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.”

Merely based on unfounded supposition and dubious evidence, the argument draws a conclusion that the Happy Pancake House should extend the use of margarine to its restaurants in the southeast and northeast as well, due to consumers’ attitudes found in the southwestern. At first glance, the statement appears to be somewhat convincing, but further reflection reveals that it omits some substantial concerns that should be addressed, thus, not cogent enough.

To start with, the author of the argument assumes too hastily that about 2 percent of customers complaining results in that 98 out of 100 other customers are satisfied with the substitution of butter. While consumers in the southwestern may have not taken this change into their consideration really as the arguer predicts, a concrete connection between the complaint rate and consumers’ actual happiness with the measure is not made effectively. Perhaps, for example, customers who did not approve this margarine’s use could have been so annoyed that they would not like to go there next time, of course there would be no chance for them to leave manager a message about his/her complaints.

In addition, the arguer claims that no complaints were accepted by the servers in the restaurants, which indicates that consumers there feel all right about the change. Yet this statement is unwarranted because no other conditions are shown in this evidence, to clarify, the author assumes without justification of a myriad of possible factors, ranging from the servers’ service at that time to whether the customers found out the difference of butter when the servers were standing by. If when the customers found the discrepancy between the butter and margarine and wanted to tell the waiters, servers were just busy engaging in other jobs in the restaurant, the customers may choose to forget it and continue their meals, but it did not mean that they were happy to notice the change.

Finally, this inclusion relies on a shaky presumption that the customers cannot distinguish butter from margarine or do not have a clear conception about the term butter. However, there is absolutely no proof provided that customers who had margarine there were not intelligent enough to differentiate the two products or tell them apart. Maybe they were considerable enough to compromise, or they thought the flavor of those two stuff were both suitable for the meals. Any of the scenarios above, if true, would ultimately serve to undermine the claim that the costumers did not capable enough to tell the difference.

To sum up, the author of the statement fails to substantiate his/her argument that it will be a wise choice to extend the margarine use to other restaurants in order to save money. Without additional evidence, however, we should be wary about accepting the truth of the statement’s conclusion.

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2012-06-03 untermrad 72 view
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flaws:
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.857 0.12 (check out online how to remove Discourse Markers)

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 14 15
No. of Words: 466 350
No. of Characters: 2341 1500
No. of Different Words: 237 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.646 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.024 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.744 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 128 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 72 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 33.286 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.566 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.857 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.344 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.627 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.134 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5

Thank you very much for rating! But I'm a little messed up with discourse makers. Here's what I got online:

The discourse markers have little explicit meaning but have very definite functions, particularly at transitional points. . . . In the written language, equivalents are expressions such as however, on the other hand, on the contrary, which are used in the transition from one sentence to another.

Does that mean I have to remove those transitions in my essay? I thought they would be useful to show the logic. Did they overflow in this essay?

More on discourse markers:

In linguistics, a discourse marker is a word or phrase that is relatively syntax-independent and does not change the meaning of the sentence, and has a somewhat empty meaning.[1] Examples of discourse markers include the particles "oh", "well", "now", "then", "you know", and "I mean", and the connectives "so", "because", "and", "but", and "or".[2]

In Practical English Usage Michael Swan defines a 'discourse marker' as 'a word or expression which shows the connection between what is being said and the wider context'. For him, it is something that a) connects a sentence to what comes before or after, or b) indicates a speaker's attitude to what he is saying. He gives three examples: on the other hand; frankly; as a matter of fact. [3]

Traditionally, some of the words or phrases that were considered discourse markers were treated as "fillers" or "expletives": words or phrases that had no function at all. Now they are assigned functions in different levels of analysis: topic changes, reformulations, discourse planning, stressing, hedging, or backchanneling. Those functions can be classified into three broad groups: (a) relationships among (parts of) utterances; (b) relationships between the speaker and the message, and (c) relationships between speaker and hearer. An example of the latter is the Yiddish involvement discourse marker nu, also used in Modern Hebrew and other languages, often to convey impatience or to urge the hearer to act (cf. German cognate nun, meaning "now" in the sense of "at the moment under discussion").[4]

Data over time show that discourse markers often come from different word classes, such as adverbs ("well") or prepositional phrases ("in fact"). The process that leads from a free construction to a discourse marker can be traced back through grammaticalisation studies and resources.[citation needed]

Common discourse markers used in the English language include "you know", "actually", "basically", "like", "I mean", and "okay".

Yes, the discourse markers in your essay is relatively overflow. The discourse markers are not a problem, but you need to find a better or 'delicate' way connecting the sentences. Read other sample essays with score 6.0. They have less discourse markers, but the logic is still good.