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 given recommendation that all schools should adopt the concept of honor code, like Groveton college, in order to see similar results- slump in number of students involved in cheating-is based on an argument which is rife with many unanswered questions. These questions need to be answered for the argument to be proved legit and recommendation to hold veracious. Further elaboration of the questions is delineated in body paragraphs.
First of all, the author brings out the fact that number of cheating reported has reduced over five years with honor code in place. However, he has failed to convince that the decrease in reports of cheating is due to slump in number of students involved in cheating. There can be multiple possible scenarios, like students failing to report all the cheating because they might be busy with their paper. Or, more students are now involved in cheating and they decide to bribe or threaten the students who report their cheating. Thus, in order to prove his position, the author needs to answer the questions: Is there any pertinent source that confirms that decrease in cheating report is attributed by fall in number of students involved in cheating? Whether or not the source is biased? How reliable is the source?
Furthermore, questions like- Is the recent survey, talked about in the argument, representative of all kinds of students-students who cheat and who don’t? Are their opinions reliable? -need to be answered. If not answered, following scenarios could be possible: students might not be speaking the truth or they might all be involved in cheating and are conspiring to make this statement in order to push back the attention. We don’t know that. Even though, say, students are telling the truth, there is no mention that the students, who took the survey, were the students indulged in cheating before and with honor code in place, they are likely to quit. Possible alternatives can be survey was taken only by students who didn’t cheat before anyway and they might be giving a biased opinion.
Based on the implication of previous assumptions, the argument makes a generalization that all other colleges and universities should adopt honor code in order to reduce cheating among students. Even though say, the aforementioned questions in previous paragraphs are answered, such generalization is still unclear. This is because it totally depends on students to make such a change success. Maybe, the students of Groveton college were obedient to follow such code. But, do we know that students of other colleges too have such sincerity? What is the guarantee that student will agree to follow such code? And what is the proof that they won’t take advantage of the situation-teacher not monitoring closely- and cheat more? These questions need to be answered for making such a general statement.
In summary, the argument is clearly rife with a lot of unanswered questions. These need to be answered in order to support the position of the argument and prove the recommendation reasonable.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not exactly. maybe more students would be less likely to cheat if they are closely monitored.
argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 504 350
No. of Characters: 2481 1500
No. of Different Words: 215 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.738 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.923 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.771 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 176 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 138 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 111 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 44 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.16 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.298 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.36 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.3 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.485 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.113 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 752, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'Whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: Whether
...umber of students involved in cheating? Whether or not the source is biased? How reliable is t...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 518, Rule ID: TOO_TO[1]
Message: Did you mean 'to have'?
Suggestion: to have
...we know that students of other colleges too have such sincerity? What is the guarantee t...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
anyway, but, first, furthermore, however, if, may, so, still, thus, in summary, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 36.0 19.6327345309 183% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 78.0 55.5748502994 140% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2577.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 500.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 5.154 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72870804502 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88584060544 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 235.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.47 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 786.6 705.55239521 111% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 64.4307350254 57.8364921388 111% => OK
Chars per sentence: 95.4444444444 119.503703932 80% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.5185185185 23.324526521 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.40740740741 5.70786347227 60% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.389806010881 0.218282227539 179% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.105100571429 0.0743258471296 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0907774048053 0.0701772020484 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.198977724095 0.128457276422 155% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.113897754935 0.0628817314937 181% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 14.3799401198 84% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.59 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.91 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 98.500998004 109% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.