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 would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The writer’s claims and assumptions appear to be sound and cogent as he provides some numbers to support his claims. However, the writer fails to further boost his arguments with more cogent premises.
The writer’s first claim backed with numbers is that cheating in Groveton college has reduced since the honor code was adopted. This is a fair claim that boosts the recommendation. However, the writer fails to prove that all students abide by the honor code and also show that some students do not cover up for others. It is possible that cheating rates in the college dropped because some students do not report other students they see cheating. In addition, the drop in cheating rate is not accurately measured. To determine if the drop in cheating rates is significant, it should be compared to the population of students. For instance, if there are 100 students in Groveton college a reduction to 14% from 30% in cheat rates is high compared to a reduction to 1.4% form 3% if there are 1000 students. Thus, the writer needs to provide more statistics to help evaluate and support his recommendation.
The writer relies on the self reports of students and uses this report to propose a recommendation for all universities. This generalization weakens the writer’s claim. The acceptance of students reports is flawed because they may not be telling the truth. Also, self report is not a reliable method of proving a claim. To strengthen his claim, the writer has to provide other proofs that students would cheat less with the hononr code than without it.
The writer’s assumption that the honor code can be replicated in other universities because of its success in Groveton is unconvincing. The writer fails to recognize that colleges and universities have different values, differ in size and population. If Groveton is a community college with a population of 500 students, can its honor code system be succesfully adopted in a university with 20,000 students? The writer needs to show that it is possible for his recommendation to stand. Also, what values does the university have? Is it a christian school where students are inbued with values such as honesty or a public university. A background on the type of school Groveton College is compared to other schools would help one in evaluating the author’s argument.
In conclusion, though the writer may be right in stating that the honor code system has reduced the incidence of cheating in Groveton College, he has failed to show how the honor code can be successfully adopted in other universities. To strengthen his claims, he has to provide more context and evidence that shows that the honor code truly reduced cheating in the college and that other universities can replicate the system.
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- not OK
The loophole of the survey is that, it just has the result of survey for honor code, we suppose 'a majority of Groveton students' is 85% of total students, the survey didn't show how is the result of survey when 'teachers closely monitored students.', maybe 98% students will not cheat.
argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 462 350
No. of Characters: 2248 1500
No. of Different Words: 186 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.636 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.866 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.721 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 166 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 126 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 41 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.25 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.151 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.542 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.323 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.504 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.12 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5