The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist.
"Twenty 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 by their own biological parents. However, my recent interviews with children living in the group of islands that includes 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 that the observation-centered approach to studying cultures is invalid as well. The interview-centered method 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."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In this article, Dr. Karp states that his recent interviews with the children living in the village are enough to prove that other conclusions originally made by Dr. Field were wrong and even more so that the approach he used was invalid as well. The truth is that this argument needs much more evidence to be fully motivated.
For instance, even though in his interviews the children talk more about their parents rather than the other adults in the village does not show in any way that children are not raised by the entire village. We do not know what questions were asked to the children, and in which circumstances the children mentioned their parents rather than other adults. For example, children could sleep and eat with their parents, but then spend most of their time with other adults who are specialized in some specific role. Probably, living in a village requires the children to learn as much abilities and skills as possible, and being reared by different adults, who have had different experiences and different knowledge in their lives could be much more helpful. A greater insight on which questions were asked and in which cases the children mentioned their parents would much more strengthen Dr. Karp’s argument. Based on the little information reported in the article though, it is clear that the proof of Dr. Fiels’s invalid conclusion has no evidence nor significance.
Secondly, Dr. Karps states that having “proved” that Dr Field’s conclusion was wrong also proves that the observation-centered approach is invalid. Let’s now suppose that Dr Field’s conclusion was wrong and that the interviews with the children proved that they are not actually reared by the village. Even if that was the case, it would be wrong to conclude that the approach used by Dr Field was invalid. While interviews mostly depend on the interviewer questions, and so could be easily influenced, the observation-centered method is much more objective. Observing the children’s life in the village without contaminating it with the presence of strangers can give a much more detailed and objective insight on what goes on in the village life. The interview-centered method can only show what the interviewers want to know, or only what the villagers want to say! Plus, there is the need to take into consideration that children living in a village have never had an interview before and so feelings such as shyness and embarrassment could have easily influenced their answers.
For the reasons I mentioned above, I think that Dr Karps’ statements in his article hide a serious lack of evidence and details about the interviews he has conducted and the method he used, causing the overall article to result very weak.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 10 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 453 350
No. of Characters: 2227 1500
No. of Different Words: 201 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.613 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.916 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.755 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 149 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 114 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.312 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.535 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.562 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.368 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.54 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.135 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 578, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
...llage requires the children to learn as much abilities and skills as possible, and b...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, if, second, secondly, so, then, well, while, for example, for instance, i think, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2293.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 453.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 5.06181015453 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61343653406 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8615726386 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 214.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.472406181015 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 680.4 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 30.0 22.8473053892 131% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 61.5927124116 57.8364921388 106% => OK
Chars per sentence: 152.866666667 119.503703932 128% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.2 23.324526521 129% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.26666666667 5.70786347227 127% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
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 : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.193550697415 0.218282227539 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0731992875602 0.0743258471296 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0413523170175 0.0701772020484 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.121231923566 0.128457276422 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0224157678701 0.0628817314937 36% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.5 14.3799401198 122% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.49 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.66 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.3 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.0 11.1389221557 126% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.