The following appeared as an editorial in the student newspaper of Groveton College.
"To combat the recently reported dramatic rise in cheating among college students, colleges and universities should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's, which calls for students to agree not to cheat in their academic endeavors and to notify a faculty member if they suspect that others have cheated. Groveton's honor code replaced an old-fashioned system in which teachers closely monitored students. Under that system, teachers reported an average of thirty cases of cheating per year. The honor code has proven far more successful: in the first year it was in place, students reported twenty-one cases of cheating; five years later, this figure had dropped to fourteen. Moreover, in a recent survey conducted by the Groveton honor council, a majority of students said that they would be less likely to cheat with an honor code in place than without."
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 editorial talks about how the honor code has proven successful in reducing the cheating instances in Groveton College and that other colleges should follow similar system. The honor code's viability is displayed by the reduction in the number of cheating cases reported and the survey of students where majority gave their vote to honor code. However, before we can be sure of this system, some questions are to be answered.
Firstly, it is said that when the old system was in place, around 30 cases were reported per year. After honor code, these reduced in number. But how credible are these numbers, since these are reported by students. It could be the case that students who cheat have made a pact that they won't tell upon each other creating a win-win situation for each of them. Hence, the reported numbers can go down this way too. During the older system, this wouldn't have happened as teachers won't take part in such ignoble actions and maybe that's why reported number were consistently high.
Secondly, the survey has been pointed out as one the indicators for the success of honor code. In the survey, students answered that they were less likely to cheat when honor code is in place. There is definitely a possibility that this is said in order to keep the new system in place as students have found out a convenient way of cheating. We also don't know who all are members of the Groverton Honor Council, maybe students representation is more than administrative body of the college. The survey results says that majority are happy with this new code. This means some students are against it , and would like to see the older one. If the new system is really efficient why are some students unhappy about it.
Until the above questions regarding the survey and reported cases data are not tweaked, we cannot be sure of the efficacy of the honor code which the editorial endorses.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 334 350
No. of Characters: 1540 1500
No. of Different Words: 171 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.275 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.611 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.306 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 96 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 70 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 51 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 20 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.647 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.436 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.529 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.334 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.501 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.097 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 446, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: wouldn't
... way too. During the older system, this wouldnt have happened as teachers wont take par...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 529, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: that's
... part in such ignoble actions and maybe thats why reported number were consistently h...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 352, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...t a convenient way of cheating. We also dont know who all are members of the Grovert...
^^^^
Line 5, column 420, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'students'' or 'student's'?
Suggestion: students'; student's
...s of the Groverton Honor Council, maybe students representation is more than administrat...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 572, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...re happy with this new code. This means some students are against it , and would...
^^
Line 5, column 602, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...This means some students are against it , and would like to see the older one. If...
^^
Line 7, column 6, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ome students unhappy about it. Until the above questions regarding the survey...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, really, regarding, second, secondly, so
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 16.3942115768 18% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1574.0 2260.96107784 70% => OK
No of words: 330.0 441.139720559 75% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.7696969697 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.26214759535 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.35701055646 2.78398813304 85% => OK
Unique words: 179.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.542424242424 0.468620217663 116% => OK
syllable_count: 501.3 705.55239521 71% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 43.8434617126 57.8364921388 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 92.5882352941 119.503703932 77% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.4117647059 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.35294117647 5.70786347227 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.250419371639 0.218282227539 115% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0789699047245 0.0743258471296 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0840843891579 0.0701772020484 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.160851712971 0.128457276422 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0921488279486 0.0628817314937 147% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.7 14.3799401198 74% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.39 12.5979740519 82% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.83 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 68.0 98.500998004 69% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.