Several years ago, Groveton College adopted an honor code, 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 a 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, a majority of Groveton students said that they would be less likely to cheat with an honor code in place than without. Such evidence suggests that all colleges and universities should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's. This change is sure to result in a dramatic decline in cheating among college students.
In this argument, the author concludes that honor codes adopted by Groveton's should be implemented by all colleges and universities to decrease cheating among college students. To bolster the argument, the author points out that cheating cases dramatically dropped in five years in Groveton College. However, unless several questions being answered, it does not hold water.
First, the author mentions that cheating cases reported by students under honor code strategy are relatively lower that the cheating cases reported by teachers under traditional system in which teachers closely monitor students. But did all the cheating cases being seen by other students? It was possible that because students were busy doing their own exam papers and did not see the cheating done by their neighbors. Even the cheating cases had been witnessed all, did all the students report the cheating cases they witnessed in the exam? It is very likely that some students were afraid of reporting because they may have been bit by the suspects. Therefore, to back the assumption, the author should provide more information about whether all the cheating cases were reported.
Second, the statement that all colleges and universities should adopt the honor code system is unwarranted. Are the other colleges and universities similar enough with Groveton College so that the outcome of the honor core system will be as good as the Groveton Collage? Perhaps, in colleges in the field of PE where exams are football match or basketball competition, teachers have to be there all the time to guarantee the safety of students and the fairness of the match. And in universities of acting, cheating is nearly impossible and teachers must be in the test to evaluate the acting skill of individual students. Thus, without additional information of what colleges are like, it is difficult to access the merit of the recommendation.
Third, the author indicates that the adoption of the honor code system can result in a dramatic decline in cheating among college students. But is the honor code system the reason of the decline of cheating? If the students in the college are becoming more educated, and regard cheating as bad behavior, they naturally do not cheat no matter the honor code system is implemented or not. Or if the punishment of cheating in the college becomes more harsh, and students may be expelled because of cheating, they will be more unwilling to cheat. In conclusion, in order to better bolster the implication, I would need more detailed information regarding the exists of other reasons of not cheating.
In a nutshell, the argument is unconvincing as it fails to answer some important questions. Therefore, if the argument had included the given factors discussed above, it would have been more logically acceptable.
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: 457 350
No. of Characters: 2310 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.624 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.055 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.639 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 173 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 139 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 110 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.762 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.69 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.341 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.571 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.127 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 633, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'bitten'.
Suggestion: bitten
...of reporting because they may have been bit by the suspects. Therefore, to back the...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, may, regarding, second, so, therefore, third, thus, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2381.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 457.0 441.139720559 104% => OK
Chars per words: 5.21006564551 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62358717085 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7390450415 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 211.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.46170678337 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 739.8 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.7216236207 57.8364921388 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.380952381 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.7619047619 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.28571428571 5.70786347227 75% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.308731559526 0.218282227539 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.105059839709 0.0743258471296 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0829308352312 0.0701772020484 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.170136997286 0.128457276422 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0825908283921 0.0628817314937 131% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.94 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.17 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.