Argument 51 范文

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Argument 51/15/130/131/133
Arg 51 pancake replace butter with margarine

15) 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Recently, butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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.

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Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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 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.

130) 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Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.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.

131) 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 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.

133) 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, 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 specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.



claim: 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.

G1: Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States.
G2: Only about 2 percent of customers have complained,

C1: indicating that 98 people out of 100 are happy with the change.
G3: Furthermore, many servers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead.
C2: Clearly, either these customers cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine.

C3: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.


A1 (G1,C1): only 2% have complained about the replacement suggesting that the rest of them are satisfied with the change and the complaint rate was low

A2 (G3): The reports of the servers are reliable and the customers would not complain in other ways.

A3 (G3, C2): Since the customers did not complain, they could not tell the difference or use the term more liberally.

A4 (C3): Such replacement is ethically and legally acceptable and will produce similar results in other restaurants.


warrant: customers who are given margarine did not complain, therefore, it is ok to replace it
warrant: customers cannot distinguish or do not distinguish; therefore, it is OK to replace

Questions should be asked about what percentages of the customers are affected by the replacement; the attitudes of the customers being given margarine instead of butter; the preferences of the customers in southeast and northeast


model essay

The business manager argues that HPH restaurants in southeast and northeast should follow the practice of replacing butter with margarine as customers in southwest seemed to be happy with the arrangement which can save costs for the company. We need to ask a number of questions about how the replacement affected the food at HPH, how the customers felt about the replacement and what difference there might be between southwest customers and the customers in the other regions in order to evaluate the soundness of the argument.

To begin with, we need to know what percentages of the food and the customers have been affected by the replacement to better understand what it means to have 2% of customers complaining. If, for example, only half of the food items on the menu were prepared with butter (or margarine after replacement) or about 30% of customers actually ordered anything with butter replaced by margarine, the fact that 2% of customers complained would be far more significant than the number suggested. In other words, the customers who ordered pancake without butter to begin with or the food items that do not include butter should be excluded from the data if we want any meaningful information.

In addition, we need to know the real attitudes of customers towards the replacement of butter with margarine. The fact that most customers being given margarine did not complain does not mean that these customers were completely satisfied with the new arrangement. Complaining about the food in a restaurant can be a stressful experience for many customers who do not want to ruin the time they spent with their friends or family members. They may choose to vote against the restaurant by feet by not coming to the restaurant next time instead of making a complaint right away. Therefore, we need to investigate how customers felt about the change through other means such as focus group, interviewing or simply monitoring the number of returning customers.

Moreover, it is not safe to assume that what works in one region would necessarily do the trick in a different region. Therefore, we need to ask if the customers in the other regions have the same preferences when it comes to butter vs. margarine. We need to carefully compare the demographic information of the different regions and investigate how different ages, income, gender and educational levels may affect customers preferences for butter in a pancake restaurant. Such information is vital for the company to make decisions about adopting this new policy in other areas.

Finally, it is important to ask whether it is ethical to keep the customers in the dark with regard to the use of butter versus margarine. The company needs to know what the customers really want when they use the term butter rather than simply assuming that butter can mean both real butter and the cheaper substitute. Offering the customers something cheaper than what the customers expect and taking advantages of the ambiguity in the naming of food may be unethical practices that would harm the restaurants reputation and long-term profitability and may even carry legal consequences.

Overall speaking, it is understandable that the company looks for ways to save costs and increase profits and replacing butter with something cheaper seems to be smart move. But this arrangement should not be extended to more restaurants in other regions unless the questions raised above are answered and the information collected clearly suggests that this arrangement is a desirable move.





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