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.
The author of the argument claims that based on the evidence, the academic honor code is more successful than other method. He provides an example of a college which adopted the honor code and explains that in comparison with the oldest method the number of reported cheating cases have decreased by use of the honor code. However, the explanations mentioned in the argument are based on fallacious assumptions and it will need alternative explanations that likely be accounted for the premises.
First of all, teachers from Groveton College had reported thirty cheating cases per year before adopting the honor code. But, in the first year with honor code, students reported nine cheating cases less than before. It’s possible that there is a difference between the reports from the teachers and the reports from students. Therefore, the author cannot compare these two reports because the students might have not reported honestly. Also, it should be considered that it’s plausible that students who attend Groveton College in the first year of adopting honor code, have stronger educational background and they did not need to cheat. Therefore, the number of reported cheating decreased. Furthermore, it’s said that five years later the number of reported cheating decreased to fourteen. There is no precise students’ demographics during these five years. Perhaps, the whole number of students had declined and as a result the number of cheating diminished. It’s possible that the ratio of students who cheat to the total of number of students had remained constant.
Moreover, the author implies that based on a survey, most of the students of Groveton College stated that they would less likely to cheat with the honor code. The author should describe more about the survey. The number of students who participated the survey, the methodology that used in that survey and the whole questions that were in it are all not mentioned. Maybe the survey is mostly about students’ study habits and only few and vague questions are about the honor code. Also, it’s likely that only strong students who hardly ever cheat, took apart to that survey. For more accurate conclusion about the survey, it should be more specific and clearer in its procedure.
All in all, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably based on flawed explanations and it needs more and precise explanation to be solid. The academic honor code would be more successful that the older method, but it requires more valid explanations about the evidence which suggest this premise.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 417 350
No. of Characters: 2089 1500
No. of Different Words: 170 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.519 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.01 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.475 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 151 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 34 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.857 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.213 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.524 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.35 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.35 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.15 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 304, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...he evidence which suggest this premise.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, honestly, however, if, may, moreover, so, therefore, as a result, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 22.0 13.6137724551 162% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2155.0 2260.96107784 95% => OK
No of words: 417.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.16786570743 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5189133491 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.56651644329 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 180.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.431654676259 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 666.0 705.55239521 94% => 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: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
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: 40.9295617487 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.619047619 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.8571428571 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.19047619048 5.70786347227 91% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.307109733441 0.218282227539 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.101931822409 0.0743258471296 137% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0760457759464 0.0701772020484 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.189546749118 0.128457276422 148% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0492478751602 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => 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: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.72 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 83.0 98.500998004 84% => 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?
---------------------
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.