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"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 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, we predict that Happy Pancake House will be able to increase profits dramatically if we extend this cost-saving change to all our 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 prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
The move from butter to margarine at Happy Pancake House restaurants in southwestern United States may inspire other branches in the southeast and northeast to do the same. Pushing for this cost-saving change is the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants who is optimistic that the “apathy” of customers towards this change will not hinder the extension of the change to other regions. While the question of whether this nonchalant sentiment will be duplicated in other regions should be answered as well, more pressing are the questions that need to be answered before the business manager can aver his position on the largely neutral sentiment of its customers.
Post ingredient change, a survey was conducted where only two percent of individuals surveyed complained about the switch to margarine. Evaluating these survey results requires the business manager to disclose further information, such as the size of data pool, neutrality of survey answers, or other options given, without fail. For example, while two percent may have outrightly complained, others may have indicated their slight dislike after tasting the new pancakes by asking for new ones. Others may have remained neutral and hence it cannot be concluded that the rest of the surveyed are happy with the change. Since the options given to the surveyed is not known, we cannot define what these complains consisted of and why other results we not categorised as such. Based on this new information, the number of customers who positively receive the change may be less than previously expected.
Complaisance in being given margarine instead of butter when customers asked for the latter does not indicate dislike for margarine, but neither does it hint at the lack of dislike thereof. Could customers have taken the option given to them out of resignation or hurry? Could customers have decided not to dine at Happy Pancake House instead? How has sales been affected since the change to margarine? Are certain items on the menu less popular than they used to be?
Should customers decide to simply switch to a competitor pancake place that uses butter, profits received by the Happy Pancake House may fall drastically more than costs have been saved by the switch, causing an overall decline in sales and a prediction that falls through.
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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: 9 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 378 350
No. of Characters: 1911 1500
No. of Different Words: 201 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.409 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.056 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.535 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 146 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 111 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 67 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.2 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.66 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.533 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.339 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.532 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.089 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 406, Rule ID: WHETHER[3]
Message: Wordiness: Shorten this phrase to the shortest possible suggestion.
Suggestion: whether; the question whether
...n of the change to other regions. While the question of whether this nonchalant sentiment will be dupli...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 303, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'options'' or 'option's'?
Suggestion: options'; option's
... neutrality of survey answers, or other options given, without fail. For example, while...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, hence, may, so, well, while, for example, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1962.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 378.0 441.139720559 86% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.19047619048 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40933352052 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.61507501612 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 206.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.544973544974 0.468620217663 116% => OK
syllable_count: 611.1 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 68.2005539241 57.8364921388 118% => OK
Chars per sentence: 130.8 119.503703932 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.2 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.6 5.70786347227 63% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.306544668171 0.218282227539 140% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.103485416458 0.0743258471296 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.10253327038 0.0701772020484 146% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.186486584317 0.128457276422 145% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0584622639863 0.0628817314937 93% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.12 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.97 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.5 12.3882235529 141% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.