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.
The first essential evidence needed to evaluate Dr. Karp’s claims is the number of islands considered in his study and the relationship between the entire group and Tertia in particular. If a very large group of islands is being considered or if the islands are relatively far from each other or have minimal similarities in their cultures and societies, Dr. Karp’s claims are severely weakened since they are using a much bigger sample and the general data may not be representative of the child-rearing practices on this particular island. On the other hand, if a few tightly knit and interdependent islands are being studied by Dr. Karp, his findings are much more relevant to Tertia.
Secondly, additional data on Dr. Field’s precise observations is required. Karp says Field concluded that the children were reared by the village rather than their biological parents, but it is unclear whether the children still live in their parents’ house or have significant, regular family gatherings. Both of these situations would explain Karp’s interview results showing the children talk more about their biological parents than other adults in the village, and thus weaken his final claim of the superiority of the interview-based method. If instead, Field’s comment about the village rearing the children means that they live in communal housing apart from their families completely, Karp’s final claim would be strengthened.
Another important piece of evidence would be a recent history of the past 20 years on Tertia. Could there exist any circumstances, like skirmishes with neighboring islands or increased globalization, that would cause a shift in the village structure? Field’s research was done 20 years before Karp’s, and it is possible that in the interim the conditions of the village shifted enough to change Tertia’s child rearing practices and thus make it inappropriate to use these two studies to compare the interview-centered and observation-centered methods.
Furthermore, another crucial piece of information would be whether there are any other observational and interview-based studies on Tertia and the neighboring islands, and if so, how well do they corroborate Field’s and Karp’s conclusions respectively. If they differ, there could be an issue with the manner in which Field or Karp conducted their studies, rather than a clash between the interview-centered and observation-centered methods in general, which would severely weaken Karp’s final claim. If no such other studies exist, peer evaluation on how well the studies were conducted and matched best practices in the field would also be important information.
Finally, Karp also claimed that the interview centered method was not only superior in studying child-rearing traditions in Tertia, but in other island cultures as well. Validating this section of the claim would require evidence on how well methods generally translate between island cultures, in case individual cultures differ so drastically that separate methods need to perfected to get the best data from each particular island or group of islands. This would also weaken the overall validity of Karp’s final claim.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 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: 493 350
No. of Characters: 2631 1500
No. of Different Words: 227 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.712 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.337 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.033 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 196 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 155 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30.812 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.516 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.875 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.37 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.617 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.114 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 175, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e skirmishes with neighboring islands or increased globalization, that would caus...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, furthermore, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, thus, well, apart from, in general, in particular, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 23.0 11.1786427146 206% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2716.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 493.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.50912778905 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71206996034 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.14325974018 2.78398813304 113% => OK
Unique words: 242.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.490872210953 0.468620217663 105% => 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: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 1.0 8.76447105788 11% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => 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: 30.0 22.8473053892 131% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 80.109300334 57.8364921388 139% => OK
Chars per sentence: 169.75 119.503703932 142% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.8125 23.324526521 132% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.5 5.70786347227 166% => OK
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 : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.23694688637 0.218282227539 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0904737079344 0.0743258471296 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0433717195861 0.0701772020484 62% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.136022612588 0.128457276422 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0376658796811 0.0628817314937 60% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 19.9 14.3799401198 138% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.03 48.3550499002 85% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.27 12.5979740519 121% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.06 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 123.0 98.500998004 125% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 20.0 12.3882235529 161% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.0 11.1389221557 126% => OK
text_standard: 20.0 11.9071856287 168% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.