Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia. Using an observation-centered approach to studying Tertian culture, he concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents. Recently another anthropologist, Dr. Karp, visited the group of islands that includes Tertia and used the interview-centered method to study child-rearing practices. In the interviews that Dr. Karp conducted with children living in this group of islands, the children spent much more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. Dr. Karp decided that Dr. Field's conclusion about Tertian village culture must be invalid. Some anthropologists recommend that to obtain accurate information on Tertian child-rearing practices, future research on the subject should be conducted via the interview-centered method.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
While the conclusion of Dr. Field made twenty years ago may not be so accurated, the arguments of the author in this passage are very poor and insufficient on reaching this conclusion. He compared the observation-centered approach of Dr Field with his interview-centered method, by saying the last is much more accurate, but the reasons for that are quite obscure.
First, the author claims to have interviewed children living in some group of islands which contains Tertia. But this interview is rather superficial: how many children were interviwed? This sample corresponds to a varied and well representative portion of the children in these islands? So it could be possible that this sample is not enough for represent the whole picture. Furthermore, how was this interview conducted? They could have asked a lot of questions directed about the kids biological parents, so the kids may have been forced to talk more about them instead of just talking about what they really wanted. For it to have more reliability, it would be necessary to interview a great sample of children from all parts of the group of islands with an well written and broad standard questionary, making sure no kid was influenced to talk about a particularly point of view.
Another important fact is that talking mostly about their parents does not mean necessarly that the children were reared just by their biological parents. They could easily be reared by the entire village, together with their parents, but yet the children could have more affect and care about their parents rather all the village. Maybe the figure of them is a representative way to talk about all people that took care of them in their lives.
Last but not least, the conclusion that interview-centered method is a better approach than a observation-centered one is totally vague: the author does not compare any aspect of the two approaches. All this conclusion comes from the fact that the children talked more about their biological parents, which we have already discussed it was not a good evidence at all. It would be needed a much better comparision between these two techniques to get such a conclusion.
For all these reasons, the conclusion of the author is very unclear and have no valid point.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 378 350
No. of Characters: 1847 1500
No. of Different Words: 183 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.409 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.886 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.896 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 120 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 85 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 58 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.625 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.03 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.688 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.573 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.119 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 760, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
... all parts of the group of islands with an well written and broad standard questio...
^^
Line 5, column 856, Rule ID: A_RB_NN[1]
Message: You used an adverb ('particularly') instead an adjective, or a noun ('point') instead of another adjective.
...ure no kid was influenced to talk about a particularly point of view. Another important fact i...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 93, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...ntered method is a better approach than a observation-centered one is totally vag...
^
Line 13, column 421, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...needed a much better comparision between these two techniques to get such a concl...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, may, really, so, well, while, talking about
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 47.0 55.5748502994 85% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1902.0 2260.96107784 84% => OK
No of words: 378.0 441.139720559 86% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.03174603175 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40933352052 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.97947966393 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 184.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.486772486772 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 573.3 705.55239521 81% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.2266270885 57.8364921388 97% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.875 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.625 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.25 5.70786347227 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.161921043056 0.218282227539 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0546840109168 0.0743258471296 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0530375981779 0.0701772020484 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0865721276694 0.128457276422 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0633169986082 0.0628817314937 101% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.19 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.78 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 98.500998004 73% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.