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.
A report says that cheating among university students are on the rise. The author of this text mentions an exception to this general trend and notices what is different about this particular college called Groveton College. Specifically, it is the fact that this college has a student honor code against cheating. The author then goes on to say that this code has reduced the number of cheaters caught over the last 5 years and concludes that all colleges must have an honor code of their own to curb the number of cheaters in all colleges. However, there are several questions that must be answered first in order to see if this recommendation has merit.
To begin with, it is important to ask if Groveton College is like other colleges. If not, it may be true that an honor code will be ineffective in other places. To illustrate, since many universities contain a diverse student body, it is possible that different cultural values make many students less hesitant to violate rules and codes of honor. This is the case with many Western cultures that value individual achievement regarless of how it is obtained. This means that cheating among certain students will not be affected in places such as America and Europe. Thus, the author’s proposal cannot apply to all colleges and universities.
Additionally, the simple fact that teachers do not moniter students as closely as before is another problem with this proposal. The big question here is can students be trusted? Can students be placed in a testing room without a proctor preventing any cheating? Students simply may not be trustworthy. For example, students may just fawn upon teachers in order to prove that they are good pupils and would lie to say that honor codes would be a good replacement for teachers just so it could be easier for them to cheat. Furthermore, it could be the case that students are part of a cheating group that swears not to report others for cheating. This means that the cases of cheating go under reported by the combined effect of a lack of academic integrity on part of the students and a lack of monitering on the part of the teachers. In fact, it could be the case that this college has the highest number of actual cheating cases per unit time.
Lastly, those statistics presented are very vulnerable to a few questions. First, that they were collected over a period of 5 years. To illustrate, technology rapidly develops. Just in the last two years smartwatches and smartphones gave students new ways for them to cheat. It could be that the teachers are not looking in the right places when they are attempting to catch cheaters since they are not monitoring students as closely as before. As a consequence, the statistics showing the decrease in the cheating incedents used to back up the author’s recommendation makes it seem less likely to be a good one. Also, it is important to ask if the same several questions wrong and same questions right occur on several students’ exams. If this were true, the students should be suspected of cheating and the author’s plan of an honor code are very questionable since students at this college could have cheated.
All in all, these questions determine whether or not the author’s idea is a good one. Especially the questions about students’ trustworthiness and that he or she said that it would work in all universities. If it is not a good recommendation, there should be other propositions that should be evaluated.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK. we argue:
'Thus, all colleges and universities should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's in order to decrease cheating among students.'
argument 2 -- OK. we argue:
'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. '.
argument 3 -- somehow duplicated to argument 2. We need to argue:
'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.'
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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: 30 15
No. of Words: 596 350
No. of Characters: 2812 1500
No. of Different Words: 257 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.941 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.718 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.652 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 183 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 151 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 113 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.867 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.489 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.261 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.438 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 371, Rule ID: MANY_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun Western seems to be countable; consider using: 'many Westerns'.
Suggestion: many Westerns
...d codes of honor. This is the case with many Western cultures that value individual achievem...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 10, column 39, 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
... All in all, these questions determine whether or not the author's idea is a good one. E...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, however, if, lastly, look, may, so, then, thus, for example, in fact, such as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 39.0 19.6327345309 199% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 22.0 13.6137724551 162% => OK
Pronoun: 58.0 28.8173652695 201% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 76.0 55.5748502994 137% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2911.0 2260.96107784 129% => OK
No of words: 596.0 441.139720559 135% => OK
Chars per words: 4.88422818792 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.94096258147 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84861332555 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 262.0 204.123752495 128% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.439597315436 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 899.1 705.55239521 127% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 14.0 4.96107784431 282% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 30.0 19.7664670659 152% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 49.960751262 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 97.0333333333 119.503703932 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.8666666667 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.93333333333 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 17.0 6.88822355289 247% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.360105445976 0.218282227539 165% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.106296321543 0.0743258471296 143% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0960791462969 0.0701772020484 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.210259282411 0.128457276422 164% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0918765925219 0.0628817314937 146% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.5 14.3799401198 80% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.02 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.68 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.