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."
In this newspaper of Groveton college, the author claims that colleges and universities should accept honor codes similar to Groveton's, which calls for students to agree not to cheat in their class and to notify a faculty member if they suspect that other have cheated to decrease cheating among students. To support her argument, she says that the number of cheating reported by teachers in the old-styled honor code in which teachers monitor students to new style code. But after changing from the old style honor code, students reported twenty-one cases of cheating at first year and, then, the number of reported cheating decreased to fourteen 5 years later. Also, she cites a recent survey which indicates that a majority of student would be less likely to cheat with the new code. It seems plausible first, however, careful scrutiny reveals that this argument has several logical flaws.
To begin with, based on the fact that the number of cheating reported decreased after implementing the new code, she assumes that the reason of decreased number of cheating reported is because of the new code. However, the new code would not really affect decreased number. For example, if the students of Groveton college have respectively different degree of morality at the specific period - before the code, at the first year when the code was implemented and 5 years later the code was implemented and the degree of morality have gotten better as time passed, the code could not be important of cause of decreased reported cheating. If this is true, we cannot be convinced by this argument.
Second, even if we admit the code affect the occurrence of cheating, based on the fact that the number of cheating reported has been decreased after the code was introduced, she hastily assumes that that decrease is substantial. However, those decreased number could not be meaningful. For example, although the number of cheating has been decreased by 14 after the code was introduced, the number of overall students has decreased. If she cannot rule out this problem, this argument has no ground.
Finally, even if we admit other problems are true, there is another problem. Based on the fact that the new styled code have been effective in Graventon college, the author presumes that the new-styled code will also have same effect on decreasing cheating of student. However, the effect of new-styled code could not be applied to other schools. Common sense tells us that each school has different characteristic of students such as race, morality, culture, point of view. If she cannot explain why she thinks the new style code will be also helpful for other schools to decrease cheating, this argument is not cogent.
To summarize, this argument is still dubious as it stands. To make this argument more persuasive, the author has to explain that the real reason of decreased number of cheating reported is because of the new styled code and has to give additional data about the number of cheating per student which shows 'actually' the cheating decreased. To evaluate better, we have to know that why she thinks conditions of other schools are similar or same with Greventon school.
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: 21 15
No. of Words: 530 350
No. of Characters: 2588 1500
No. of Different Words: 208 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.798 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.883 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.427 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 193 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 142 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 100 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.238 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 14.342 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.905 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.368 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.531 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.196 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 335, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...g students. To support her argument, she says that the number of cheating report...
^^
Line 1, column 346, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... To support her argument, she says that the number of cheating reported by teach...
^^
Line 1, column 420, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...by teachers in the old-styled honor code in which teachers monitor students to ne...
^^
Line 5, column 183, Rule ID: REASON_IS_BECAUSE[1]
Message: Probably an incorrect phrase. Use 'the reason 'is that''.
Suggestion: is that
...f decreased number of cheating reported is because of the new code. However, the new code ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 598, Rule ID: OF_CAUSE[1]
Message: Did you mean 'of course' (=naturally)?
Suggestion: of course
...passed, the code could not be important of cause of decreased reported cheating. If this...
^^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 339, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
... shows actually the cheating decreased. To evaluate better, we have to know that w...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, first, however, if, really, second, so, still, then, as to, for example, such as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 43.0 28.8173652695 149% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2667.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 530.0 441.139720559 120% => OK
Chars per words: 5.0320754717 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.79809637944 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.51463842899 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 222.0 204.123752495 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.418867924528 0.468620217663 89% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 814.5 705.55239521 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 85.7444391406 57.8364921388 148% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.0 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.2380952381 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.95238095238 5.70786347227 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.194239410958 0.218282227539 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0635514168048 0.0743258471296 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0740451443166 0.0701772020484 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.12582082549 0.128457276422 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0813619095163 0.0628817314937 129% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 48.3550499002 113% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.19 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.8 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.0 12.3882235529 137% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => 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.