According to a recent report, cheating among college and university students is on the rise. However, Groveton College has successfully reduced student cheating by adopting an honor code, which calls for students to agree not to cheat in their academic endeavors and to notify a faculty member if they suspect that others have cheated. Groveton's honor code replaced a system in which teachers closely monitored students; under that system, teachers reported an average of thirty cases of cheating per year. In the first year the honor code was in place, students reported twenty-one cases of cheating; five years later, this figure had dropped to fourteen. Moreover, in a recent survey, a majority of Groveton students said that they would be less likely to cheat with an honor code in place than without. Thus, all colleges and universities should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's in order to decrease cheating among students.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions
A new cheating prevention strategy adopted by Groventon college shows significant decrease in number of reported cheating cases. However, before applying this strategy to other colleges and universities additional questions needs to be answered, like how the number of cases of cheating has been validated, how the survey has been performed and how students feel about new policy. Otherwise, it’s not entirely clear how effective the new strategy actually is and if there aren’t any downsides of applying it for relations between students.
Firstly, the success of the policy is not properly evaluated - they compare number of cases reported by teachers before to cases reported by students after applying the policy. However, it’s possible that students reported less and less just because they established some agreements between each other since they are interested party. The college could perform a few revisions by teachers in order to estimate the real amount of cheating or at least make it comparable with old numbers.
Secondly, the students’ survey might not be reliable. It is possible that they just hide the fact of global cheating right now in order to cover each other. Alternative explanation is that it’s hard to estimate properly if you would cheat in a particular situations. The survey performed might already addressed these problems, but then its methodology should be also included in the report. The number the college tried to estimate via the survey - how many students who cheated before stopped cheating after the college set up the honor code - could be again estimated more precisely by using the additional validations by teachers.
Finally, there is a possibility that the established policy undermined students relationships, generated an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. While addressing the cheating issue, it might hurt the college image and even students performance. The college is well advised to perform another survey and possibly psychologist consultations in order to understand the effect of the policy on students apart from cheating rate.
To conclude, the report appears to be unconvincing and several important questions needs to be an answered first before applying the same strategy at other places, because the honor code could be ineffective at best and hurt more than help.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- not OK
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Let's analyze the structure of the statement and argue accordingly:
In the first year the honor code was in place, students reported twenty-one cases of cheating; five years later, this figure had dropped to fourteen. //maybe other factors caused the cheating cases dropped, not honor code
Moreover, in a recent survey, a majority of Groveton students said that they would be less likely to cheat with an honor code in place than without. //how about the rates if Groveton students are closed monitored by teachers,
Thus, all colleges and universities should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's in order to decrease cheating among students. //maybe it works only for some schools, not all of them
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 367 350
No. of Characters: 1927 1500
No. of Different Words: 187 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.377 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.251 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.723 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 149 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 124 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 97 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.467 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.193 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.347 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.593 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.069 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 266, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[2]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'situation'?
Suggestion: situation
...erly if you would cheat in a particular situations. The survey performed might already add...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 225, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'students'' or 'student's'?
Suggestion: students'; student's
...t might hurt the college image and even students performance. The college is well advise...
^^^^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['actually', 'also', 'but', 'finally', 'first', 'firstly', 'however', 'if', 'second', 'secondly', 'so', 'then', 'well', 'while', 'apart from', 'at least']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.225961538462 0.25644967241 88% => OK
Verbs: 0.168269230769 0.15541462614 108% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0865384615385 0.0836205057962 103% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0697115384615 0.0520304965353 134% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0336538461538 0.0272364105082 124% => OK
Prepositions: 0.122596153846 0.125424944231 98% => OK
Participles: 0.0576923076923 0.0416121511921 139% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.86502291162 2.79052419416 103% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0288461538462 0.026700313972 108% => OK
Particles: 0.00240384615385 0.001811407834 133% => OK
Determiners: 0.0961538461538 0.113004496875 85% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0192307692308 0.0255425247493 75% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0144230769231 0.0127820249294 113% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2370.0 2731.13054187 87% => OK
No of words: 369.0 446.07635468 83% => OK
Chars per words: 6.42276422764 6.12365571057 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.38284983912 4.57801047555 96% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.425474254743 0.378187486979 113% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.357723577236 0.287650121315 124% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.287262872629 0.208842608468 138% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.157181571816 0.135150697306 116% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86502291162 2.79052419416 103% => OK
Unique words: 191.0 207.018472906 92% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.517615176152 0.469332199767 110% => OK
Word variations: 55.9577219576 52.1807786196 107% => OK
How many sentences: 15.0 20.039408867 75% => OK
Sentence length: 24.6 23.2022227129 106% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.7338611424 57.7814097925 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 158.0 141.986410481 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.6 23.2022227129 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 1.06666666667 0.724660767414 147% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 3.58251231527 56% => OK
Readability: 60.3723577236 51.9672348444 116% => OK
Elegance: 1.49557522124 1.8405768891 81% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.362497028922 0.441005458295 82% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.101584888535 0.135418324435 75% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0588360027408 0.0829849096947 71% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.589755972221 0.58762219726 100% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.16833032017 0.147661913831 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.152988338712 0.193483328276 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0632621232257 0.0970749176394 65% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.366480649419 0.42659136922 86% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0819956366004 0.0774707102158 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.244270116732 0.312017818177 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0433968733802 0.0698173142475 62% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.33743842365 60% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.87684729064 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.82512315271 21% => More neutral sentences wanted.
Positive topic words: 5.0 6.46551724138 77% => OK
Negative topic words: 9.0 5.36822660099 168% => OK
Neutral topic words: 1.0 2.82389162562 35% => OK
Total topic words: 15.0 14.657635468 102% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.