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 examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The assertion made by Dr. Karp that the interview-centered method would establish more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions in the island of Tertia is flawed and based on many unwarranted assumptions. There are certainly many holes in the contention which need to be addressed properly in order to get more lucid figure of the matter in hand.
The initial assertion of Dr. Karp about the invalidity of the result of Dr. Field is based on the flawed assumption that the social and child rearing system had remain unchanged during the period of twenty years. Twenty years is a long duration and changes may occur within that society which may have altered the finding between two anthropologists. What if the trend in the child rearing has been changed over due to certain social circumstances which may have resulted newer trend. If this is the case then, both of them might be true and the findings of Field would also be valid. So, there should have been more in-depth analysis of the changes in the social trends over the twenty year period in Tertia to charge the previous finding to be invalid.
Similarly, Dr. Karp has based his assertion on interview with the children. There is no detail information about the interview schedule being applied in his observation. The children age group is also not mentioned in the argument and the types of question asked to them is also unclear. What if the children are below the age of ten and they do not respond to each and every questions of the interviewer. This may well, certainly deviate the results of the study. Similarly, the children that Dr. Karp observed are now no more children after twenty years. So the subject of the observation during Karp`s time and the subjects of interview of Field`s time may well lead into two disparate results and conclusion.
However, what Dr. Field should have done is that he should have put some extra work on developing a proper interview schedule and the should have explained about the types of questions being asked and the group of children being asked in the study to provide more accurate resolution of the child rearing trend in the island of Tertia. Similarly, he should have interviewed the grown ups subjects from the time of Dr. Karp in order to explicitly depict the difference in the results of Karp and his own to render the previous result invalid.
Coming to the conclusion, the interview-centered method may duly be the better and more accurate method, but in order to reach this conclusion, further analysis about the overall methodology, effectiveness and validity of the method is to be ascertained.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 446 350
No. of Characters: 2146 1500
No. of Different Words: 191 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.596 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.812 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.682 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 143 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 100 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.235 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.66 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.765 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.343 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.561 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.103 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 162, Rule ID: HAD_VBP[1]
Message: Possible agreement error -- use past participle here: 'remained'.
Suggestion: remained
...the social and child rearing system had remain unchanged during the period of twenty y...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 162, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Use past participle here: 'remained'.
Suggestion: remained
...the social and child rearing system had remain unchanged during the period of twenty y...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, may, similarly, so, then, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2210.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 446.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 4.95515695067 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5955099915 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79319287578 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 195.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.437219730942 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 673.2 705.55239521 95% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.6548087898 57.8364921388 120% => OK
Chars per sentence: 130.0 119.503703932 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.2352941176 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.17647058824 5.70786347227 56% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.164501849902 0.218282227539 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0622003873314 0.0743258471296 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0572289776413 0.0701772020484 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0920205044604 0.128457276422 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0482127402377 0.0628817314937 77% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.1 14.3799401198 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 48.3550499002 111% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.15 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => 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
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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.