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.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In this argument, the author recommends that all colleges and universities should adopt the same honor code system as Groveton College in order to prevent cheating in the exam with the belief that it will dramatically reduce the cheating behavior. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, three questions must be answered.
First of all, it is questioned that the author presumes, without justification, that Groveton College's students actually reduce their cheat records because their college adopts the code system. Granted, it is possible that students' less cheat in the exam rooted in they are afraid of it would damage their academic record. However, there is a potential that students are in the same line, which means they worked together to cheat in the exam but decided not to notify the faculty numbers - which also accounts for the drop of reported cheat cases during years. If it is true that students still cheat after the implementation of this system, then the author's assumption that fewer students cheat is definitely invalid.
Secondly, the author further assumes, the smaller number of reported cases in 5 years showed the effectiveness and credibility of the honor code. It seems that the number of cheating is decreasing, but without knowing the number of gross students, can we draw this conclusion fairly. There is a possibility that the total number of students in 5 years is in a decline, thus made the number of reported cheat behavior decrease. For example, the number of students in the 5th year is half the number of 1st year, but the figure of reported cases of cheating in 5 years later is more than half of the 1st year. If this scenario has merit, this conclusion cannot hold water.
Finally, even though this system worked well in Groveton College, it is also needed to investigate whether it is feasible to apply this system to other colleges and universities. Maybe other schools have their own way to deal with such problems, or maybe with the strict rules of honor code, fewer students are likely to continue their studies in that school, which would damage the reputation and recruitment of that school. If the above is true, then taking the same system will undoubtedly bring unexpected problems to other schools.
Overall, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to provide more information to answer these questions, therefore, it is possible to fully evaluate the soundness of the recommendation that whether this honor code is helpful for reducing the cheating behavior and whether it is feasible to apply this system to other colleges and universities.
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: 16 15
No. of Words: 448 350
No. of Characters: 2216 1500
No. of Different Words: 201 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.601 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.946 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.619 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 163 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 84 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 34 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.136 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.342 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.612 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.11 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 653, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...implementation of this system, then the authors assumption that fewer students cheat is...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, thus, well, for example, first of all, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2287.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 448.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10491071429 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.60065326758 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7120529812 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 212.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.473214285714 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 697.5 705.55239521 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 64.1158314596 57.8364921388 111% => OK
Chars per sentence: 142.9375 119.503703932 120% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.0 23.324526521 120% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.375 5.70786347227 164% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.384514766855 0.218282227539 176% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.130121118341 0.0743258471296 175% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.109503069296 0.0701772020484 156% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.215226757444 0.128457276422 168% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.137170595912 0.0628817314937 218% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.6 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.06 48.3550499002 89% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.59 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.