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 rat

Essay topics:

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 to agree with the argument in the passage that children in Tertia are raised by their biological parents rather than the whole society and additionally, the interview-based approach is superior to the observation-based approach. Nevertheless, in order to fully evaluate the conclusion, we need a considerable amount of evidence.

The first piece of evidence that we need to evaluate Dr. Karp’s argument is information about whether or not Tertia has changed significantly in the past twenty years. As Field admits in the article, his experiment was conducted twenty years ago. It is highly probable that there were some great climate or social changes in the Tertia island which could alter the child-rearing practice. For instance, the social structure might have been changed by great revolutions, resulting in a more civilized government which required all children be raised by their own parents. Additionally, the birth rate may have lowered in the past twenty years, which might render child-rearing affordable for each family. In this case, Both Karp’s and Field’s argument could be correct because each is about a different period of time.

To determine whose claim is more convincing, we also need more information about the each experiment’s design. Dr. Karp mentions in the article that his experiment was conducted on many islands including Tertia. However, he does not explain what proportion of the data was collected on Tertia alone. More specifically, out of thousands of interviews, perhaps only two or three were conducted on Tertia. What is more, though children in Tertia talks about their parents only “a little”, children in other islands where they are raised by their biological parents may talk much more since the geological proximity cannot guarantee the culture similarity, thus making the result deceiving. Additionally, the interview conducted by Dr. Karp seems to only concern about who they talk about, but not what they are talking, which is confusing as well, since children might just talk to the researchers how they are rejected by their parents. In both scenario, we need more information about each experiment’s design before we can decide whose argument is more convincing.

Last but not least, the author also implicates that the interview-centered approach is more convincing the observational-centered approach. It is thornier to handle this grandiose claim. To begin with, Dr. Karp need the evidence mentioned above to fully convince his own argument first to prove that his interview-centered is effective. Granted that the interview-centered approach in the study of rearing tradition in Tertia island is more effective, a single success cannot validate the whole approach, thus a larger amount of experiments are required to fully evaluate the methodology itself, ideally thousands of anthropological experiments in each approach.

Clearly, in order to better understanding the strength and the weakness of Dr. Karp’s argument, it is necessary to know more about Tertia island’s development over the past twenty years, the specific interview design. Moreover, to extend the single case to fully evaluate the superiority of an approach in anthropology study, considerable amount of study analysis is needed.

Votes
Average: 6.6 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 100, 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
...rp's argument is information about whether or not Tertia has changed significantly in the...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 818, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...rrect because each is about a different period of time. To determine whose claim is more c...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, moreover, nevertheless, so, thus, well, for instance, to begin with, what is more

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2825.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 510.0 441.139720559 116% => OK
Chars per words: 5.53921568627 5.12650576532 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.75217629947 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.27362968095 2.78398813304 118% => OK
Unique words: 244.0 204.123752495 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.478431372549 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 873.0 705.55239521 124% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Interrogative: 1.0 0.471057884232 212% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 71.3772514051 57.8364921388 123% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.523809524 119.503703932 113% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.2857142857 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.57142857143 5.70786347227 98% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.21194234908 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0699071819606 0.0743258471296 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0556091314671 0.0701772020484 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.12036199841 0.128457276422 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0489514596712 0.0628817314937 78% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.8 14.3799401198 117% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 38.66 48.3550499002 80% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.15 12.5979740519 120% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.67 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 124.0 98.500998004 126% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.