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.
Argument claims that Dr. Field's observation that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents is invalid. At first Dr. Karp’s point seems to be valid but it is not bolstered with any strong evidences to prove the argument.
Firstly, Dr. Karp assumes the social culture and situations in Tertia are similar as of twenty years ago. If so, it should have been supported with valid evidences by which we can conclude that mindset and culture of people did not change over the time span of twenty years. As everything changes over course of time, it is evident that people now living in Tertia would not prefer their children being reared by other villagers. If this is proved to be true, will surely undermine Dr. Karp's argument.
Second, Dr. Karp's recent interview over group of islands which include Tertia is considered same as Dr. Field's observation on Tertia. In Dr. Karp's conclusion there is a chance that children in other islands apart from Tertia are reared by biological parents and this ratio is significantly high when compared to children reared by whole village in Tertia. Therefore, if this statement is true will be contradicting Dr. Karp's argument.
Third, Dr. Karp's interview-centered method is considered similar to that of Dr. Field's observations. In interview-centered method children would have answered only to those questions which were imposed on them. We do have a chance where all questions are related to their biological parents, hence children spend much more time talking about their parents rather than other adults in village. Even this would weaken the argument, if proved to be correct.
Therefore, Dr. Karp provided many claims without any standard evidence to prove them. To state the argument true he need to provide solid evidences for all the questions raised in above paragraphs. Or else Dr. Karp's argument cannot be convincing to anyone.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 318 350
No. of Characters: 1588 1500
No. of Different Words: 162 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.223 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.994 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.648 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 127 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 79 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 50 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 31 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.875 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.809 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.688 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.375 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.588 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.152 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, hence, if, second, so, therefore, third, apart from, talking about
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1632.0 2260.96107784 72% => OK
No of words: 318.0 441.139720559 72% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.1320754717 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.22286093782 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76931744322 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 167.0 204.123752495 82% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.525157232704 0.468620217663 112% => OK
syllable_count: 494.1 705.55239521 70% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 0.0 8.76447105788 0% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 45.6871152515 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.0 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.875 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.4375 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.301685694695 0.218282227539 138% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.10901016913 0.0743258471296 147% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0962474585939 0.0701772020484 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.181318187982 0.128457276422 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0964721108018 0.0628817314937 153% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.47 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.01 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 69.0 98.500998004 70% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 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.