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 author proposes that interview-centered method will establish a much more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions in island of Tertia than observation-centered approach. To buttress his/her argument, the author cites the following evidences: first, results from Dr. Field's observation-centered approach shows children in Tertia were reared by an entire village whereas recent interviews by Dr. Karp indicate that children spend more time talking about their biological parents. The issue has its own merit, but due to lack of relevant evidences and unaddressed assumptions, the conclusion is unsubstantiated.
To begin with, the author fails to provide the information about the change of Tertia over the past twenty years. Dr. Field conducted his observation twenty years ago and it is plausible that the child-rearing traditions has changed dramatically. Kids were fostered by entire village twenty years ago but are fostered by their parents today because of tradition revolution or new settlement. Both methods contribute to the credible conclusions, in this case. The chronological comparison is unwarranted since they measure disparate time dimensions.
Moreover, the author assumes that the result of his/her recent interview is credible and convincing. The assumption seems valid at first glance. Nonetheless, after careful investigation, some questions remain unexamined. The interview about the children living in group of island might not be accurate and representative. The author fails to provide the detailed information about the whole interview processes and sample space. How long is the interview? What are the content of questionnaires? How many people took part in the survey? Who are the target participants? If the interview was based on only a few children, they are not able to represent the all the children today who are reared in the island of Tertia. We are not able to draw any conclusion about the rearing method only based on the outcome of the interview above.
The interview result, in addition, shows that more kids spend much more time talking with their parents. Nevertheless, the time spending talking with their parents does not necessarily mean they are raised by their biological parents. Their parents might just be responsible for talking to their kids. Many other resources and opportunities provided to kids during their grown-up are offered by the entire village, such as education chances, food, caring and so on. The conclusion got from the ambiguous definition of rearing is unlikely to get support to the author's argument.
Last but not least, we are not offered information about details of Dr. Karp's interview-centered approach. Is it properly designed? Is it objective? In addition, this experiment is done in various islands, so that we do not know exact number of researches done in Tersia. Even though interview method is grounded, when many results were drawn from other islands, naturally there is discrepancy between two researchers. It is, furthermore, too naive to conclude that interview-centered method is inherently more valid than observational-centered approach. In order to fully evaluate this claim, we need to study more examples of interview-based and observational-based anthropological results respectively.
To sum up, as it stands, the author's conclusion is drawn by incomplete evidences that undermine its validity. To further strengthen his/her argument, the author is recommended to provide the evidences as follows: first, whether child-rearing tradition changes significantly in Tertia over the past twenty years; second, more details about interview and observational methods by two researchers; third, the correctness and extension of Dr. Karp's conclusion.
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: 33 15
No. of Words: 569 350
No. of Characters: 3116 1500
No. of Different Words: 274 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.884 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.476 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.3 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 230 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 181 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 135 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 96 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.242 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.088 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.485 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.241 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.415 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.117 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
..., the conclusion is unsubstantiated. To begin with, the author fails to provi...
^^
Line 3, column 551, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... they measure disparate time dimensions. Moreover, the author assumes that the re...
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Line 5, column 833, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...d on the outcome of the interview above. The interview result, in addition, shows...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 561, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...aring is unlikely to get support to the authors argument. Last but not least, we ...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 578, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... to get support to the authors argument. Last but not least, we are not offered i...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 707, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...d anthropological results respectively. To sum up, as it stands, the authors con...
^^^^^^
Line 11, column 30, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ely. To sum up, as it stands, the authors conclusion is drawn by incomplete evide...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, if, moreover, nevertheless, nonetheless, second, so, then, third, whereas, in addition, such as, talking about, to begin with, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 12.9520958084 31% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 81.0 55.5748502994 146% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3232.0 2260.96107784 143% => OK
No of words: 567.0 441.139720559 129% => OK
Chars per words: 5.70017636684 5.12650576532 111% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.87972968509 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.46978176323 2.78398813304 125% => OK
Unique words: 284.0 204.123752495 139% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.500881834215 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 978.3 705.55239521 139% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 30.0 19.7664670659 152% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 79.2717478046 57.8364921388 137% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.733333333 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.9 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.36666666667 5.70786347227 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 16.0 4.67664670659 342% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.254411459435 0.218282227539 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0574658185695 0.0743258471296 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0852928540541 0.0701772020484 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.145911526761 0.128457276422 114% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.102647912894 0.0628817314937 163% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.75 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.78 12.5979740519 125% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.57 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 145.0 98.500998004 147% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.