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 this prompt claims that evidence suggests that student honor codes are more effective means of preventing cheating than the previous method of having professors observe their students. Referencing statistics over the past few years, the statement relies on incomplete facts and erroneous statstical measurements.
To begin, the evidence points to a small case study with Groveton College. The university adopted an honor code. Under the preceding system, professors reported roughly thirty cases per year. As a result of the new system, reports dropped to twenty-one cases in the first year and as low as fourteen within five years. Unfortunately, this statement is an embellishment of the true nature of reason for this decrease in cheating. I hypothesize that the professors took a decreased interest in proctoring their students once the school announced a formal shift in test-taking procedures. After five years, the professors became increasingly less interested in assuring that their students did not cheat and the numbers support this claim. Teachers want to teach; monitoring their students is a monotonous task that they were required to do as a part of the role. Once it was dismissed as a responsibility, the instructors likely turned their back to antiquated practice. Founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, gained notoriety for cheating on his Art History exam while he was enrolled at Harvard. While it was an exam that could be worked on at home, Zuckerberg ignored the school's honor code and used his website as a platform to gain insights on his curriculum. Many students use the absence of proctor as an opportunity to cheat.
Furthermore, the prompt purports that students enrolled in Groveton stated that they would be less likely to cheat with an honor code in place than without one. Again, this is a weak and unsupported claim. It offers no counter argument to how students feel with faculty members observing them during exams in lieu of an honor code nor does it give any input on the format of the survey. For example, the survey could have asked a simple yes/no question asking whether students would be more likely to cheat with an honor code. This questionnaire is biased and evokes a yes response thus creating a lobsided data point. Further, if the survey had students input their names this would affect the responses: no student would admit to a tendancy or predisposition to cheat on exams. Had the argument described a survey asking insightful questions about cheating tendancies juxtaposing an honor code compared to observant teachers, this would have made an adequate supporting argument.
Constrastly, the author may be correct in suggesting that honor codes fare better in terms of cheating. There is something about swearing on a creed that resonates with students. Nonetheless, the argument bases it's reasoning on fallacious logic and does not provide convincing evidence.
The prompt's statement that honor codes discourage cheating moreso than observant mediators relies on false assumptions. It may be factual, but without convincing evidence, it is nothing more than conjecture.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 5, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'prompts'' or 'prompt's'?
Suggestion: prompts'; prompt's
...ot provide convincing evidence. The prompts statement that honor codes discourage c...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, if, may, nonetheless, so, thus, while, for example, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2654.0 2260.96107784 117% => OK
No of words: 505.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.25544554455 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.74048574033 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85203240073 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 276.0 204.123752495 135% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.546534653465 0.468620217663 117% => OK
syllable_count: 810.9 705.55239521 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Interrogative: 0.0 0.471057884232 0% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 43.1565370065 57.8364921388 75% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.076923077 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.4230769231 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.38461538462 5.70786347227 59% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.181710807333 0.218282227539 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0501068301233 0.0743258471296 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0481620092873 0.0701772020484 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.106931614494 0.128457276422 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0446349119367 0.0628817314937 71% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => 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: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.3 8.32208582834 112% => OK
difficult_words: 151.0 98.500998004 153% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => 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: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.