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 the given argument, the author presents a case of Groveton College and how the college was able to reduce the number of cases of cheating. The argument says that the adoption of the honor code caused the decline in cheating cases and hence, this method, if applied to all colleges, can dramatically decline cheating among the students. The conclusion is based on the facts that Groveton college saw a decrease in cheating cases after it adopted the honor code and also, the survey in which the majority of the students said that they would cheat less if the honor code was applied. While the author tries to present a plausible argument, it is based on various faulty reasoning and before the conclusion can be accepted three questions need to be answered as explained below.
To begin with, was the reduction in cheating in Groveton college due to the application of the honor code? Can we simply attribute the reduction in cheating cases to the sole reason of the honor code? The cases of students cheating depends on a number of factors and it is possible that the reason for the high cheating cases was because of a disingenuous batch of students who were more likely to cheat and the subsequent batches of students were more honest and unlikely to cheat. Similarly, the argument that just students agreeing to not cheat doesn’t seem much because students might still cheat despite declaring to refrain from cheating. If the author can provide more evidence to answer the question, it might make the conclusion more acceptable.
Moreover, can the result from a single college be generalizable to all colleges? The author professes that the same level of decrease in cases of cheating will be observed if all the colleges apply a honor code similar to the Groveton College. Using a single case of success to make such a leap of generalization seems wrong. Since, it is not made clear that all other colleges are similar in every aspect to Groveton college, the honor code might not produce the intended result in every college. For example, it is possible that one of the reasons for the decrease in cheating in Groveton college might be the presence of strict teachers who would give low grades to students who cheat or even expel them. So, if the author can provide more evidence about the similarity of other colleges and applicability of such honor code there, the conclusion might hold water.
Furthermore, Is the sample of students who opted in the survey representative of the overall population of students in Groveton College? It is possible that the student who took part in the survey was actually a minority of students who got informed about the survey. Most of the students might have been oblivious about the survey, and hence couldn’t participate. This might have skewed the results. It is possible that some of the students might have selected options even without reading the survey. It might also be possible that the survey was associated with the credits of the students in some way, and because of the fear of losing credits the students selected the choices which would support the actions of the college. Thus, the student survey cannot be simply taken as a good evidence as it is now. If the author can provide the answer to this question, then it might make the conclusion more plausible.
In conclusion, the author has tried to present a cogent argument but because of the fallacious assumption the conclusion cannot be readily accepted. To make this argument more agreeable, the author can do further research focusing on the question asked above and provide an improved argument and evidence, possibly as a detailed report. But, the argument, as it stands now, doesn’t hold much water.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 638 350
No. of Characters: 3027 1500
No. of Different Words: 238 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.026 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.745 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.482 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 219 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 172 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 120 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.538 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.375 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.692 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.333 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.517 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.15 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 506, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...d also, the survey in which the majority of the students said that they would che...
^^
Line 3, column 57, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...as the reduction in cheating in Groveton college due to the application of the ho...
^^
Line 5, column 199, 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
...l be observed if all the colleges apply a honor code similar to the Groveton Coll...
^
Line 7, column 422, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...skewed the results. It is possible that some of the students might have selected options ev...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, furthermore, hence, if, moreover, similarly, so, still, then, thus, while, for example, in conclusion, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 25.0 12.9520958084 193% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 86.0 55.5748502994 155% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3104.0 2260.96107784 137% => OK
No of words: 635.0 441.139720559 144% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.88818897638 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.01988110783 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.56354832675 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 249.0 204.123752495 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.392125984252 0.468620217663 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 979.2 705.55239521 139% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.9279597294 57.8364921388 102% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.384615385 119.503703932 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.4230769231 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.26923076923 5.70786347227 92% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.288582041352 0.218282227539 132% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0916293712019 0.0743258471296 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.090993970863 0.0701772020484 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.171051621777 0.128457276422 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.100885330235 0.0628817314937 160% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 14.3799401198 96% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.38 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 123.0 98.500998004 125% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.5 12.3882235529 141% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.