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.
It might seem logical, at first glance, to agree with the argument in Dr. Karp’s article that children in Tertia actually are raised by their biological parents (and perhaps even, by implication, that an observation-centered approach to anthropological study is not as valid as an interview-centered one). However, in order to fully evaluate this argument, we need to have a significant amount of additional evidence. The argument could end up being much weaker than it seems, or it might actually be quite valid. In order to make that determination, we need to know more then analyze what we learn.
The first piece of evidence that we would need in order to evaluate Dr. Karp’s claims is information about whether or not Tertia and the surrounding island group have changed significantly in the past 20 years. Dr. Field conducted his observational study 20 years ago, and it is possible that Tertia has changed significantly since then. For example, if we had evidence that in teh intervening years Westerners had settled on the island and they introduced a more typical Western-style family structure, it would certainly weaken Dr. Karp’s argument. In that case, the original study could have been accurate, and Dr. Karp’s study could be correct, as well, though his conclusion that Dr. Field’s method is ineffective would be seriously weakened.
Another piece of evidence that might help us evaluate this claim involves the exact locations where Dr. Karp’s interviews took place. According to this article, Dr. Karp and his graduate students conducted interviews of “children living in the group of islands that includes Tertia.” If we were to learn that they never interviewed a single Tertian child, it would significantly weaken the conclusion. It could turn out to be the case, for example, that children on Tertia are raised communally, whereas children on other islands nearby are raised by their biological parents.
In order to fully evaluate this article, we would also need to learn more about the interview questions that Dr. Karp’s team used. What exactly did they ask? We don’t know, nor do we know what the children’s responses actually were. What did they say about their biological parents? The mere fact that they speak more frequently about their biological parents than they do about other adults does not meant hat they are raised by their biological parents. It would significantly undermine Dr. Karp’s argument if it turned out that the children said things like how much they missed their parents or how their parents had left them in a communal environment. Without knowing WHAT the children said, it is hard to accept Dr. Karp’s conclusion.
It is slightly more difficult to discuss teh evidence we might need in order to evaluate the more interesting claims in Dr. Karp’s article, namely his extension of the results of his study to a conclusion that interview-centered methods are inherently more valid than observational-centered approaches.
In order to fully evaluate this claim, in fact, we would need to look at many more examples of interview-based and observation-based anthropological studies and we would also need to look into different study designs. Perhaps Dr. Field did not conduct an effective observational study, but other observational approaches could be effective. In order to make such grandiose claims, Dr. Karp really needs a lot of additional evidence (ideally a meta - analysis of hundreds of anthropological studies).
Clearly, then, we need to have additional evidence in order to get a more complete understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of Dr. Karp’s article. We need to know about Tertia and the surrounding islands, whether or not they have changed over the past 20 years. We also need to know about study design (Dr. Karp’s and Dr. Field’s). And we really need a lot more information if we want to extend the results of a study about one island culture to all anthropological fieldwork.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 647 350
No. of Characters: 3237 1500
No. of Different Words: 249 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.043 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.003 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.004 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 212 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 164 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 115 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.885 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.456 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.692 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.348 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.518 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.219 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 571, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[2]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...hat determination, we need to know more then analyze what we learn. The first pie...
^^^^
Line 3, column 108, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
... Dr. Karp’s claims is information about whether or not Tertia and the surrounding island group...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 402, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[3]
Message: The verb 'does' requires base form of the verb: 'mean'
Suggestion: mean
...han they do about other adults does not meant hat they are raised by their biological...
^^^^^
Line 11, column 210, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...out Tertia and the surrounding islands, whether or not they have changed over the past 20 year...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, however, if, look, really, so, then, well, whereas, for example, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 28.0 12.9520958084 216% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 72.0 28.8173652695 250% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 85.0 55.5748502994 153% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3353.0 2260.96107784 148% => OK
No of words: 646.0 441.139720559 146% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.19040247678 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.0414809386 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.10634692171 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 267.0 204.123752495 131% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.413312693498 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 999.9 705.55239521 142% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 17.0 4.96107784431 343% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 12.0 4.22255489022 284% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 71.8844816231 57.8364921388 124% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.961538462 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.8461538462 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.84615384615 5.70786347227 67% => OK
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 12.0 4.67664670659 257% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.199067062971 0.218282227539 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0713843815374 0.0743258471296 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0648538151863 0.0701772020484 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.118966236368 0.128457276422 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.043043740935 0.0628817314937 68% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.12 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.81 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.