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 en

Essay topics:

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 recommends that all colleges and universities should apply honor codes similar to Groveton’s in order to decrease cheating among students. The suggestion is mainly based on that the cheating cases reported by students had dropped from twenty- one to fourteen after the honor code was adopted for five years. To strengthen his argument, the author also points tout that a majority of Groveton students said that they would be less likely to cheat with an honor code in place than without in a recent survey. However, some questions should be addressed before the author proves the validity of this argument.

The author mentions that the cheating cases reported by students had dropped from twenty- one to fourteen after the honor code was adopted for five years, and infers that it is the honor code that resulted in the decrease of cheating. However, the sequence of the two events, in itself, cannot sufficiently prove the causal relationship between the two events without some questions being addressed. In all likelihood, the examinations have been easier that five years ago, thus the students do not needs to cheat in the exams. In addition, it is totally possible that the students just conceal their classmates’ misbehavior, so the cheating cased have not declined at all. Also, it is likely that they are focused on answering the questions in the exams, so they have no time to care about whether others were cheating. Hence, the inference that the honor code is efficient to decrease the cheating cannot hold water without the questions being answered.

The author also demonstrates that 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. Based on this credence, the author hastily deduces that the honor code is effective. Nevertheless, the reliability and representativeness of the respondents are dubious. There is possibility that the students may not tell the truth about whether they had cheated because answering the questions honestly may lead to some undesirable consequences for them, such as being punished by the school, thus they may evade the crucial point, or even lie in their answers. And these respondents studied in the survey may not represent the general group of the whole students. Maybe the survey was conducted in the library, where most of the students are excellent students who are almost unlikely to cheat in the exams. Without considering the accuracy of the respondents’ answer and the actual number involved, the result of the survey, in itself, could not justifiably support the inference without some questions being addressed.

On the basis that the honor code can effectively decrease cheating among the students in Groveton, it is still hasty to implement the author’s suggestion to all colleges without caring about the actual condition in other universities. The threshold problem in the suggestion is that it is merely based on the poor assumption that Groveton and other colleges are similar enough at every aspect and are indeed comparable. However, many differences may exist in them, which may render the honor code proved to be effective in the former one might not have the same effectiveness in all colleges. It is possible that the students in other schools do not have good qualities and are inured to cheating, while the Groveton is a top university with many excellent students. Also, it is possible that students in other schools are more likely to conceal the cheating behavior for each other, so the honor code is useless in such colleges. Hence, answering the aforementioned questions may more defensibly reinforce the argument.

Overall, although the argument might be plausible, some questions should be addressed before the author validates the assumption. Had the author delivered more answers to the questions, the conclusion and the whole argument might be more defensible.

Votes
Average: 5.5 (3 votes)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 500, Rule ID: DONT_NEEDS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'need'?
Suggestion: need
...ive years ago, thus the students do not needs to cheat in the exams. In addition, it ...
^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, hence, honestly, however, if, may, nevertheless, so, still, then, thus, while, in addition, such as

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 38.0 19.6327345309 194% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 23.0 13.6137724551 169% => OK
Pronoun: 43.0 28.8173652695 149% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 86.0 55.5748502994 155% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3342.0 2260.96107784 148% => OK
No of words: 643.0 441.139720559 146% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.19751166407 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.03561760524 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81036206874 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 261.0 204.123752495 128% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.405909797823 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1038.6 705.55239521 147% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.3976824864 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 133.68 119.503703932 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.72 23.324526521 110% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.2 5.70786347227 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 16.0 6.88822355289 232% => 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: 0.334812957781 0.218282227539 153% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.104857941766 0.0743258471296 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0926920864702 0.0701772020484 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.206797316972 0.128457276422 161% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.113291753211 0.0628817314937 180% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.9 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.18 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.44 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 145.0 98.500998004 147% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Write the essay in 30 minutes.

Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.

Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 643 350
No. of Characters: 3236 1500
No. of Different Words: 247 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.036 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.033 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.631 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 234 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 179 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 139 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 70 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.72 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.172 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.64 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.339 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.513 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.122 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5