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 en

The writer of the argument argues that all colleges must implement honor codes in order to prevent cheating among students. This is based on the premises that cheating is increasing as per recent report and the desirable results achieved by Groveton College by implementing honor codes 5 years ago and moreover, the survey, which showed that students are less likely to cheat with honor codes are in place. The argument seems true at first sight, however, on deeper analysis, it becomes clear that certain relevant aspects have not been taken into account, leading to a number of unanswered questions and logical flaws.

One such flaw is the questionable conclusion that only honor codes have caused a decline in cheating. In other words, the writer has assumed the unverified cause and effect relationship between implementation of honor codes by Groveton College and reduction in number of cheatings. However, there may be other causes or reason such as strict vigilance by teachers or implementation of severe punishment for those found doing cheating or increase in number of invigilators in order to increase the teacher-student ratio, which forced the students to abstain from cheating. For example, a report, by the behavioural scientists in 2006 which conducted the experiment on students under closed observation of vigilance, had concluded that students are more likely to bind by the visible vigilance than by the moral codes. Thus, in order to make the argument more reasonable, the writer would need to prove that only honor codes were implemented by Groveton College which has reduced the cheating.

Moreover, the writer’s argument is incorrectly based on the unanswered question that results achieved by Groveton College would also applicable in other colleges. In other words, the writer has assumed the sampling flaw that application of results achieved in certain condition holds merit for all other conditions. However, there may be reasons that the conditions are entirely different such as the intake of students in Groveton College in the last five years has improved in terms of their academic credentials or Groveton College may have implemented an admission procedure which requires background check from their earlier schools. For example, a college in India, that is Shri Ram College of Commerce, had implemented improved criteria for admission into the college and made it mandatory that students who has achieved more than 90 per cent marks in school are only eligible to apply. This has resulted into the enrolment of brilliant students who are not dependent on cheating for their marks. Therefore, in order to overcome this flaw, the writer should provide answer to the intake of students and admission criteria in all colleges in the last five years and Groveton College.

Finally, the writer arbitrarily assumed the analogical relation between recent report on cheating and recent survey of students of Groveton College. In other words the writer has assumed unverified relationship between that recent reports on cheating are viable and would continue to show the same results in future and responses of students who stated that they are less likely to cheat with pursuing the codes. However, there may the case that the rise in cheating is ephemeral and this has highlighted for this year due to some unforeseen events such as poor intake of students in the last 2 years and moreover, the writer may find that survey covers only those students who had abstained from cheating thus, ignored the responses of students who cheated despite codes. For example a study conducted in 2016 on students of 5 major colleges of USA found that number of students who continued to cheat despite moral commitment are higher than the number of students who stopped cheating because of moral codes. Thus, to render the argument valid, the writer should demonstrate the trend in cheating for last 10 years and responses of students who continued to cheat after implementing codes.

While concluding, it is apparent that there are several logical flaws and unanswered question in the writer’s attempt to recommend the honor codes for all colleges. After close examination of the argument presented, the recommendations given in the above paragraphs show how the argument may be strengthened and made more logically sound.