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.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In this statement, the author recommends that all universities should replace their academic honesty policy with honor codes, in which students will be monitored by their peers on cheating, instead of by their teachers. To exemplify his recommendation, the author refers to Groveton College as an example. This college adopted this honor codes and then cases of cheating decreased from about thirty per year to fourteen within five years. Besides, the majority of those students reported to be less likely to cheat with the honor code in place in a recent survey. Though it seems to be reasonable at a first glance, after a close scrutiny, I argue that there are still questions concerning the author’s lines of reasoning before jumping to the conclusion, which could either strengthen the authors claim or make it totally invalid depending on the answers.
First of all, the author attributes the yearly declining numbers of cheating cases to the honor codes, but this causal relationship remains questionable and we need to ask whether there are other factors which could lead to this result. For example, during those five years, if the college adopted other forms of education on the issue of academic honesty-addressed by every professor at the beginning of every semester for instance-it is of equal possibility that could contribute to the declining of cheating cases, since students are more aware of the problem of academical dishonesty after all those addressing.
In addition to that, the author put an equal mark between the number of cheating cases and the actual status of academic honesty, which is also questionable. It is not necessarily true that all cheating behaviors are revealed by students since they are in similar situations and might not report each other’s misbehaviors. For example, in some cases, students might even work together to cheat in an exam, which makes it much unlikely that they would report each other.
Last but not least, the author takes the survey as an important indicator that students would be less likely to cheat with an honor code in place. However, this survey is answered by students themselves and the integrity still remains to be checked, which is also another question to be answered. For instance, if the answer turns out students might tell the opposite idea of what they actually thought about in the first place, just because they want to show their honesty within this interview even though they cheated in a course before, the validity of this survey will then be unconvincing and the author’s reasoning would be problematic.
To put it together, though based on actual data and survey, the author’s recommendation still remains to be questioned before reaching the conclusion. They validity of his/her recommendation depends heavily on the answers and we can only evaluate this recommendation after those questions are answered through further investigation.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- not exactly. need to compare to anther survey that teachers closely monitor students.
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Need to argue against the conclusion always. For this topic it is:
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.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 475 350
No. of Characters: 2404 1500
No. of Different Words: 224 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.668 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.061 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.688 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 171 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 132 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 31.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.057 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.733 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.364 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.602 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.118 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 625, Rule ID: CLOSE_SCRUTINY[1]
Message: Use simply 'scrutiny'.
Suggestion: scrutiny
...e reasonable at a first glance, after a close scrutiny, I argue that there are still questions...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, besides, but, first, however, if, so, still, then, after all, for example, for instance, in addition, first of all, in some cases, in the first place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 43.0 28.8173652695 149% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 83.0 55.5748502994 149% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2484.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 474.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.24050632911 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66599839874 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84796061537 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 235.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.495780590717 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 768.6 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 10.0 4.22255489022 237% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 31.0 22.8473053892 136% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 82.6357469057 57.8364921388 143% => OK
Chars per sentence: 165.6 119.503703932 139% => OK
Words per sentence: 31.6 23.324526521 135% => OK
Discourse Markers: 11.0 5.70786347227 193% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
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: 0.249650968692 0.218282227539 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0971828934268 0.0743258471296 131% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0558168316864 0.0701772020484 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.141997727127 0.128457276422 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0735055379492 0.0628817314937 117% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 19.1 14.3799401198 133% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.01 48.3550499002 83% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.4 12.197005988 126% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.7 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.07 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.4 11.1389221557 129% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.