According to a recent report, cheating among college and university students is on the rise. However, Groveton College has successfully reduced student cheating by adopting 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. In the first year the honor code 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. Thus, all colleges and universities should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's in order to decrease cheating among students.
According to a success story from Groveton College, the author claims that all colleges and universities should adopt an honor cord to reduce cheating. However, the evidence offered by the author is insufficient.
Citing a recent survey, the author says the policy of honor code likely to decrease the cheating behavior in Groveton College. Nevertheless, how many students answer the survey? Sample survey should be able to represent all students in the school, whereas in the argument, lacking information about the number of the students surveyed and the number of respondents, it is impossible to access the validity of the results. For example, if 2000 people were surveyed but only 20 responded, the conclusion that deduced by the survey would be highly suspect.
Even if the number of respondents is extremely sufficient, a standard procedure of sample survey still needs to be assured. Nonetheless, we find no sign of such processes for a random sample and have good reasons to doubt whether the sample is representative enough to reflect the general effectiveness of the honor code policy as a whole. For instance, if the surveyors only selected the respondents with higher grade and IQ in the class, there is no need for them to cheat in the class so as to get a good grade. Therefore, the consequence deduced by the survey would represent these specific respondents, not all students in Groveton College.
Even assuming that the survey is reliable and valid, the author fails to consider some possible differences between Groveton College and other schools, that might help to bring about a different result for other schools. For example, if Groveton College is a Catholic school, the religion among the students enhances their morality so as to decrease the behavior of cheating. Still, in other universities, without religion restricting their behaviors, cheating in the class may help get a good grade to make them find a better job in the labor market. Thus, without accounting for these and other possible dissimilarities, the author cannot assume that what resulted in decreasing cheating in Grove College would bring about the same result in other universities and colleges.
Most important of all, a correlation between honor code and decreasing cheating does not necessarily infer a causal relation. It may be a spurious relationship, because of the evidence provided by the author is insufficient. The first year has the 30 cases and drops to 14 years after five years, but the second, third and fourth year are missing value probably having 100 cases in each year. Without supplying the data between the first year and fifth year, it is unfair to conclude that the honor code is responsible for decreasing cheating.
In conclusion, the author needs to provide sufficient evidence as above mentioned to strengthen the argument.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- OK
argument 4 -- OK
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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: 19 15
No. of Words: 464 350
No. of Characters: 2331 1500
No. of Different Words: 215 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.641 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.024 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.73 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 180 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 97 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.421 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.115 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.789 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.317 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.583 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.103 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
According to a success story from Grovet...
^^^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...offered by the author is insufficient. Citing a recent survey, the author says ...
^^^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...by the survey would be highly suspect. Even if the number of respondents is ext...
^^^^
Line 3, column 492, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
... no need for them to cheat in the class so as to get a good grade. Therefore, the conseq...
^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... not all students in Groveton College. Even assuming that the survey is reliabl...
^^^^
Line 4, column 336, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...ng the students enhances their morality so as to decrease the behavior of cheating. Stil...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...lt in other universities and colleges. Most important of all, a correlation bet...
^^^^
Line 6, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...s responsible for decreasing cheating. In conclusion, the author needs to provi...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, may, nevertheless, nonetheless, second, so, still, then, therefore, third, thus, whereas, as to, for example, for instance, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2392.0 2260.96107784 106% => OK
No of words: 464.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.15517241379 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.64119157421 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84826072886 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 227.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.489224137931 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 734.4 705.55239521 104% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.2476470644 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 125.894736842 119.503703932 105% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.4210526316 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.52631578947 5.70786347227 149% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.256099449893 0.218282227539 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.077677477684 0.0743258471296 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0680271705657 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.119219412314 0.128457276422 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0735407664425 0.0628817314937 117% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.1 14.3799401198 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.94 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.6 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.