argument 第4篇（60min）margarine @ happy pancake 请猛拍

elinagao

Prompt:
Thefollowing memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake Houserestaurants.
"Recently,butter has been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurantsthroughout the southwestern United States. This change, however, has had littleimpact on our customers. In fact, only about 2 percent of customers havecomplained, indicating that an average of 98 people out of 100 are happy withthe change. Furthermore, many servers have reported that a number of customerswho ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead.Clearly, either these customers do not distinguish butter from margarine orthey use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine."
Write aresponse in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that couldrival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) canplausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.


Making profits and cutting costs are the ultimategoals of most businesses. That being said, however, taking the right approachand offering the customers a satisfying experience are what it takes for abusiness to succeed and maintain its growth. In this argument, though seeminglycredible, the author's suggestion on the restaurant's budget-cut appearsunfounded without the support of sound evidence.

Simply based on the premise "2 percent ofcustomers have complained," the author's conjecture that "98 peopleout of 100 are happy with the change" is stated without the warrant of astudied report or survey. If a later study indicated that a good portion of the98% of the customers did not bother to complain to Happy Pancake House but simplyturned away from the restaurant to other restaurants that serve real butter,the author's overly optimistic argument would be significantly weakened.

Also, what appears from the provided paragraphis that the restaurant altered butter with margarine without publiclyannouncing the switch. Unless proven that the customers are indifferent aboutsuch change, it would be too early for to assert that the majority of thecustomers were happy with the change. Maybe the customers did not even get achance to discover the switch during their visit (they enjoyed the meal withouttaking advantage of the margarine.) However, if the paragraph had providedrelative statistics that among those who were aware of the difference most ofthe customers enjoyed their meal just as well as they did before, the inferencethat people were happy with the change would stand stronger.

In addition, to indicate the causes for thecustomer's silence over margarine, a pie chart with each causes' percentagedistribution would add credibility to the author's premise: "clearly,either these customers cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use theterm butter to refer to either butter or margarine." Granting the author agreen light to proceed to his analysis of spreading the stratagem all over thecountry if the chart did manifest the customer being adaptable to thelower-cost margarine, though, the paragraph could have explained in moredetails about the feasibility of this idea in different parts of the country.

If evidence were provided that people from thesoutheast and northeast have very similar mentalities in regards to the swap ofbutter to margarine, it would relatively natural for the readers to arrive atthe same conclusion as the author did. However, if study showed that customershad explicit expectations of restaurants to serve butter over margarine due tohealth concerns, local cultures or other reasons, the author's conclusion couldbe easily challenged.

To sum up, although it is crucial for a chainstore to sustain uniformity across all its branches, companies should berespectful to the geographical and cultural varieties of different regions whenadopting changes even though the changes might seem small. Instead of deducingthe customer reactions based on unsound premises, a suggestion maker shouldhave done more careful research to support his premises and inferences toarrive to legitimate conclusions.

普渡哥

Simply based on the premise "2 percent ofcustomers have complained,"

美语里有双引号的引用吗？我不清楚。。求高人。

竹林中人

LZ这篇文章的特点在于不落窠臼，句式文章结构都有变化，很好，继续努力

elinagao

普渡哥，有的啊～从以前本科上的几堂写作课上看，都ok的啦～

elinagao

谢谢竹林～我写的每篇你都有在看！弄得我现在每天写作欲望都好强烈哦 （心情大好中）