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-centred approach to studying cultures is invalid as well. The interview-centred 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 the article written by Dr. Karp, the main point is that the interview-centered method used by his team of graduate students to understand child-rearing traditions and other island cultures is more accurate than Dr. Field's previously used observation-based technique. The evidence presented is the interviews of the children from Tertia where they spoke more about their biological parents than other adults in the village. This directly contradicts the conclusion Dr.Field had made via observation that the children in Tertia are raised by the whole village rather than their biological parents. I believe this argument as it stands is quite weak and three pieces of evidence are required to analyse the argument.
The first evidence needed is providing the questions that were asked to the children in the interviews conducted by Dr. Karp's team. It is possible that the questions related to biological parents and thus the children spoke about them. Maybe the questions directly mentioned their parents and thus, obviously the children spoke about them over other people in the village. If either of these were true, it would make the argument presented lose a lot of weight.
The second evidence required is a further explanation as to how this observation drawn from the interviews negates the previous conclusion drawn by Dr. Field. It could be that in 20 years things have change in Tertia and the child-rearing traditions are no longer the same as what was observed by Dr. Field. It is also possible that if instead of children, older people were interviewed about their childhoods they quantify what Dr. Field had concluded. If either of these happen to be the case, the argument would be rendered ineffective.
The third evidence needed is how this apparent failure of the observation-centered approach in one situation proves the entire approach invalid. Maybe, this failure is a one-time fluke and the technique is actually quite effective to study cultures. Perhaps, interacting with people from these cultures instead of observing them is actually altering their behaviour and leading to wrong conclusions about island cultures. If either of these points were true, the argument would no longer hold water.
To conclude, the argument that the interview-centred method is superior to the observation-centered for the study of island cultures like Tertia, as it stands, is flawed. If the three pieces of evidence mentioned are provided, the argument would be strengthened and it would also be possible to properly evaluate it.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 407 350
No. of Characters: 2101 1500
No. of Different Words: 176 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.492 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.162 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.979 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 154 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 118 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 96 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.611 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.832 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.338 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.565 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.128 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 471, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: Field
... directly contradicts the conclusion Dr.Field had made via observation that the child...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, if, may, second, so, then, third, thus, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2156.0 2260.96107784 95% => OK
No of words: 406.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.31034482759 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.48881294772 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.01693473862 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 184.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.453201970443 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 654.3 705.55239521 93% => 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: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.942971083 57.8364921388 74% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.777777778 119.503703932 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.5555555556 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.77777777778 5.70786347227 66% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.202929609983 0.218282227539 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0660335878454 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0614450033639 0.0701772020484 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.114611151721 0.128457276422 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0662874705852 0.0628817314937 105% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.81 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.92 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 82.0 98.500998004 83% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => 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.