Evidence suggests that academic honor codes, which call for students to agree not to cheat in their academic endeavors and to notify a faculty member if they suspect that others have cheated, are far more successful than are other methods at deterring cheating among students at colleges and universities. Several years ago, Groveton College adopted such a code and discontinued its old-fashioned system in which teachers closely monitored students. Under the old 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.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
In the argument, the author concludes that students at colleges and universities are more prone to cheating when there is an academic code which calls for them not to carry out malpractice than when there is none. The author comes to this conclusion by citing Groveton College who followed this policy and its number of students who cheated reduced. While this claim may seem to be true at first glance, his conclusion rest on three unwarranted assumptions that severely diminish its credibility.
Firstly, the author based his conclusion by citing the success of this policy at Groveton College. Perhaps this college is not sufficient for the survey. This school may be one out of several schools in which the policy works; it might not be enough to conclusively say Groveton college could be used as evidence. In addition, five years might not be a significant number of years to determine if a policy actually worked. Maybe the general standards for determining if a policy works could be a hundred years. If these claims are true, then the author’s conclusion holds no water.
Secondly, the author assumes that all the Groveton college number of cheaters are reported. Perhaps the students are not honest; the students may knowingly be be omitting the number of cheaters in examinations. These students could just be reporting a smaller amount not to arouse suspicion and maybe the number of cheater actually increased. In addition, the students might not be as diligent as their teachers when reporting an offence. They might consider some kinds of cheating as insignificant while their lecturers may not be so lenient. If these scenarios are true, then the author’s claim is severely diminished.
Thirdly, the author assumes without proper evidence that the policy actually worked because of the reduction in the amount of students. Maybe the students in Groveton college reduced in the following six years after the policy was put in place and perhaps decreasing the number of cheaters. The school might have 200 students and 30 miscreants and then it reduced to 25 and the number of cheaters reduced to 21.If these cases are true, then the author’s conclusion is severely weakened.
In conclusion, the author’s claim that academic honor codes can result in a reduction in the amount of cheating students may be true. However, as it stands now the author’s claim rest on some assumptions that severely diminish the credibility of his claim. To bolster his conclusion, he must address the three assumptions above.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 417 350
No. of Characters: 2063 1500
No. of Different Words: 178 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.519 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.947 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.609 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 158 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 37 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.857 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.2 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.762 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.342 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.342 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.12 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 156, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: be
... not honest; the students may knowingly be be omitting the number of cheaters in exam...
^^^^^
Line 4, column 411, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: If
...nd the number of cheaters reduced to 21.If these cases are true, then the author’s...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, while, in addition, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 47.0 55.5748502994 85% => 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: 2120.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 416.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.09615384615 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.51620172871 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.72092874171 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 181.0 204.123752495 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.435096153846 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 647.1 705.55239521 92% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => 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: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 39.6414199654 57.8364921388 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.952380952 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.8095238095 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.7619047619 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.137135908935 0.218282227539 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.046667419055 0.0743258471296 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0662976249299 0.0701772020484 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0890996139219 0.128457276422 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.055850110498 0.0628817314937 89% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.3 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.69 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 82.0 98.500998004 83% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.