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 author claims that Groveton College has developed a system called honor code which relies on students reports of cheating in exams and it has reduced cheating between students. However, due to lack of some information about students grades and their behaviors during exams, his arguments seems to be flawed and unbelievable. In order to evaluate mentioned claims, the writer should provide more information which will be mentioned in the following paragraphs.
The first question readers should know about in order to evaluate the writer's claim is whether students feel comfortable for reporting their classmates or not? The writer asserts that students are reporting less cheating in compare to teachers. However, it is possible that students are not comfortable with reporting their classmates as they are friends and reporting their friends can weaken their friendship. Moreover, other students may ignore students which reports other students. Therefore, students are reluctant of reporting cheaters. If, honor code is going on in this way, reduction in reports does not indicate that students are cheating less than before.
Another question that might help readers evaluate this claim is whether students are aware of cheating techniques or not? It is possible that cheating students are using technology for their goal. For instance, it is hard for other students to recognize a student who is cheating with google glass of smart watch or even tiny headphones. Thus, the writer should make it clear whether other students are aware of prevailing cheating methods or not? If the answer is negative, then this memo will certainly weaken.
Moreover, readers should know about range of students grades. A compare between range of grades before and after the honor code projects will clarify an important point. Logically a narrow range of grades is suspicious. That’s because a class has different students which some of them are talented who gain peak of the range and lazy students who stand at the bottom of the grades range. If different in quality of students is not shown on their grades it is possible that lazy students are cheating. Therefore, the writer should answer how honor code system had effected grades of students?
In order to fully evaluate this article, readers would also need to know whether students are solely focused on their papers or they are skilled enough to divide their attention between their paper and their surrounding area? This means, most of the time students are just focusing on their paper and they are not aware of their surroundings and they will never understand if other students are cheating. In this case, reduction in amount of reports does not show reduction in amount of cheating during exams.
To sum it up, if the writer wants to convince readers he should answer some questions. First he should clarify whether students feel comfortable or ashamed of reporting their classmates as a cheater or not? Second, the writer must clarify if students know about ways of recognizing cheating students and cheating methods? Third, he should tell readers how honor code had effected student's grades? At last he should tell readers whether students who are focusing on their papers are able to pay attention to their surroundings or not? Without answering this questions the argument seems flawed.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 29 15
No. of Words: 541 350
No. of Characters: 2754 1500
No. of Different Words: 211 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.823 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.091 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.475 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 217 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 163 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 118 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.655 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.599 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.621 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.345 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.5 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.158 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 292, Rule ID: COMFORTABLE_WITH_VBG[1]
Message: Use simply 'comfortable reporting'.
Suggestion: comfortable reporting
...r, it is possible that students are not comfortable with reporting their classmates as they are friends an...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 394, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...tand at the bottom of the grades range. If different in quality of students is not...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, however, if, may, moreover, second, so, then, therefore, third, thus, for instance
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 47.0 28.8173652695 163% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2825.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 541.0 441.139720559 123% => OK
Chars per words: 5.22181146026 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.82280071112 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.5440720527 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 216.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.399260628466 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 835.2 705.55239521 118% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 43.4808033688 57.8364921388 75% => OK
Chars per sentence: 97.4137931034 119.503703932 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.6551724138 23.324526521 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.27586206897 5.70786347227 57% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 19.0 6.88822355289 276% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.42277380957 0.218282227539 194% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.140061789705 0.0743258471296 188% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0981271148027 0.0701772020484 140% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.259212352428 0.128457276422 202% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.069494937575 0.0628817314937 111% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.0 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.19 8.32208582834 86% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => 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.