The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist.
“20 years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than their own biological parents. However, my recent interviews with the children living in the group of Island including Tertia show that these children spend much more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. This research of mine proves that Dr. Field’s conclusion about Tertian village culture is invalid and thus the observation-centered approach to study cultures is invalid as well. The interview-centered approach that my team of graduate students is currently using in Tertia will establish a much more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions there and in other island cultures.”
Author argues the observational approach (by Dr. Field) to know about any particular culture or a group of people is not the right way and rather he claims, the right way of doing this is to approach people and talking to or conducting interviews with them.
The author made a conclusion by dismissing the validity of observation-centered approach to study about cultures and rather stated his interview-centered approach is the only way to know about cultures. This argument made by the authors is based on the evidence by his own interview experience, that he conducted in the same Tertia Island’s children where Dr. Field’s observational based research was conducted. However, author failed to clarify various aspects in his evidence and hence, many loopholes could be noticed in his argument. First, he claims that children of Tertia Island talk about their biological parents mostly. But, it fails to mention on what condition or at which particular moment the children talk about their own parents. Possibly, the interviewer only asked questions that were particularly based on their biological parents. So in this case children are supposed to talk about them. But it fails to prove that mere talking about their own parents would validate the way(s) of working any tradition or culture.
Second, the interview conducted by author and his graduate students failed to prove about the scale of their conducted interviews. Is the no. of interviews conducted is enough to negate the observational approach of Dr. Field, and can establish the case is same, valid and applicable to the entire Island? The argument made here might base on interview conducted only on fraction of children in an area. That would definitely not be enough to prove the common traditional practices of the entire group.
Also, we have to keep in mind the subjects like mental and emotional status of a particular child while the interview was conducted, or a type of question asked that may trigger the emotional side of a child. There might be such question(s) in the interview that made the child reminiscence about his/her parents. The moment or day could be a special (may be his/her birthday or parent’s birthday). So, without knowing the context of the talk that happened during the interview it is difficult to say that authors claims about his approach is the ONLY right approach is wrong.
Hence the more profound study and evidence need to be provided from the author’s side to prove that mere observation would not validate the way of living (here in this case the child-rearing tradition) of group of people, rather, talking with the people will be the right approach to know about them. Until author’s claims are established and supported by solid proves it is hard to fully support the claim made by the author.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 469 350
No. of Characters: 2287 1500
No. of Different Words: 189 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.654 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.876 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.729 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 157 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 118 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.684 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.022 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.526 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.331 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.541 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.153 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 17, column 1, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
... the ONLY right approach is wrong. Hence the more profound study and evidence ne...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, hence, however, if, may, second, so, while, talking about
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 75.0 55.5748502994 135% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2376.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 467.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.08779443255 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.64867537961 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87408128875 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 202.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.432548179872 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 723.6 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 68.1546770222 57.8364921388 118% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.8 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.35 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.75 5.70786347227 66% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.126634533206 0.218282227539 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0446781708842 0.0743258471296 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0464968282975 0.0701772020484 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0744619284302 0.128457276422 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0379302483761 0.0628817314937 60% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.54 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.23 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 102.0 98.500998004 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.