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.
The argument states a new recommendation of anthropologists that claims it is reliable to conduct an interview-centered method instead of an observation-centered method while studying child-rearing practices in Tertia island. This recommendation is mostly based on Dr. Karp recent investigation on a group of islands including Tertia that revealed different information using interview-centered approach from information obtained twenty year ago by Dr. Field using observation-centered method. As the author states, since children spoke mostly about their biological parents in the interview, one can conclude that they were reared by their own parents not the whole village. The author neglects to bring concrete evidence and ponder over details of both studies; thus, the argument is rife with wholes, fallacious assumptions and recommendation is refutable.
The first study was done twenty years ago by Dr. Field. If the author seeks to recommend or refuse any theories he should incisively compare the information of recent studies with past studies to validate theories’ credibility. Certainly the methods of research have revolutionized since 20 years ago and this fact makes the Dr. Field’s results fragile and possible to be misleading. Following that, the author needs to provide concrete evidence about the observations of Dr. Field. What did he exactly confront in the island that led him to think children were influenced by the whole village child-rising practices? May be Dr. Field had found sculptures, painting on the walls of caves or other monuments that revealed the fact that child-rising was not dependent on the biological parents only. Anthropologist ought to investigate on discovered items, books or stories regarding the culture of Tertian people to be able to estimate the real culture.
According the author’s argument, Dr. Karp has visited a group of islands including Tertia. It is immediately apparent that the author is recommending a solution for studies of a specific island according to the general gathered information for a group of islands. Moreover, the second approach of interview-centered is replete with unanswered queries. What types of the questions Dr. Karp used to ask from children? Did the questions specifically focus on the children’s parents or questions were from general topics? If the children answered questions using information that included their parents, Dr. Karp prediction is correct. However, asking questions about parents and neglecting the impact of other residents of village is totally biased and misleading.
Additionally, the argument is deprived of sufficient statistics and figures regarding the number of children who were participants of Dr. Karp study. The recommendation can be erroneous if Dr. Karp has interviewed few children of Tartia and mostly asked questions from children of other islands. In this case, the recommendation is applicable for studies of other 19 islands.
In summary, suggesting a solution to follow in anthropology that is a science full of mystery is not easy. Depending on the only results gained from two studies without pondering over their details may cause the conclusion to fall apart. Therefore, to make the argument more reliable, the author has to elucidate above-mentioned ambiguities.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/story/gre-argument-essay-topic-21-outline
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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: 24 15
No. of Words: 503 350
No. of Characters: 2748 1500
No. of Different Words: 241 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.736 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.463 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.275 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 214 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 174 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 125 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 81 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.958 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.943 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.583 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.296 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.497 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.094 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, so, therefore, thus, while, as to, in summary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 76.0 55.5748502994 137% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2818.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 503.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.60238568588 5.12650576532 109% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73578520332 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.39218727902 2.78398813304 122% => OK
Unique words: 251.0 204.123752495 123% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.499005964215 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 858.6 705.55239521 122% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.7313442129 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.416666667 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.9583333333 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.125 5.70786347227 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 11.0 4.67664670659 235% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.331258671818 0.218282227539 152% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0862167082237 0.0743258471296 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0762643321434 0.0701772020484 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.16457979696 0.128457276422 128% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.100650532475 0.0628817314937 160% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.2 12.5979740519 121% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.12 8.32208582834 110% => OK
difficult_words: 143.0 98.500998004 145% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.5 12.3882235529 125% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 16.0 11.9071856287 134% => 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.