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.
While it may be true that interview-centered method could obtain more accurate information on Tertian child-rearing practices than observation-centered approach does, the author fails to provide compelling evidence to support such a claim. Admittedly, interviewing children may generate more detailed information than pure observation, but the author's argument is plagued with assumptions and speculations, and therefore, not strong enough to convince me.
Citing the researches conducted by Dr. Field and Dr. Karp respectively, the author suggests that Dr. Karp's interview-centered approach obtains more accurate information and disproves Dr. Field's research, which was conducted in an observation-centered way. Therefore, the author appears to agree with some anthropologists who recommend that future research on this subject should be conducted via the interview-centered method. However, I must point out that Dr. Karp needs to explain in detail how his research disproves Dr. Field's research. Dr. Karp's research involves interviewing children from a group of islands that include Tertia, which may not be suitable for understanding Tertian culture itself. It could be possible that Tertian children, in the interviews, only represent a small fraction of the samples interviewed by Dr. Karp, so the research conducted on children from a group of islands is not suitable for understanding Tertia.
In addition, information obtained from the interviews may be distorted and untrue. For example, the interview questions may not be designed subjectly, and biased questions would almost certainly manipulate the interview results. Moreover, children may try to lie about their behaviors, hoping that their biological parents will not be sad or angry about their replies.
Finally, the fact the Dr. Karp's conclusion differs from Dr. Field's does not necessarily prove that Dr. Field's conclusion is invalid. Note that Dr. Field's research was conducted 20 years ago, so a lot of things might have been different now. Therefore, Dr. Field's and Dr. Karp's conclusions might both be true at the time they came out. It is likely that Dr. Karp's conclusion, which came out recently, might become obsolete twenty years from now. If this is the case, the difference in research methods do not affect the validility of researches.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 11 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 352 350
No. of Characters: 1935 1500
No. of Different Words: 184 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.331 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.497 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.232 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 151 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 122 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.467 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.228 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.867 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.384 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.604 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.145 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 345, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ormation than pure observation, but the authors argument is plagued with assumptions an...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, however, if, may, moreover, so, therefore, while, for example, in addition
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 34.0 55.5748502994 61% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1974.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 352.0 441.139720559 80% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.60795454545 5.12650576532 109% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.33147354134 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.29258789895 2.78398813304 118% => OK
Unique words: 191.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.542613636364 0.468620217663 116% => OK
syllable_count: 560.7 705.55239521 79% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => 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: 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: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.0172195748 57.8364921388 97% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.6 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.4666666667 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.86666666667 5.70786347227 103% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.232834142193 0.218282227539 107% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0818922290499 0.0743258471296 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0597149366115 0.0701772020484 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.123464474752 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0714302426618 0.0628817314937 114% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.7 14.3799401198 116% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.55 12.5979740519 123% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.9 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 92.0 98.500998004 93% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.5 12.3882235529 125% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 16.0 11.9071856287 134% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.