The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthroplogist.
“Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist , visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observation that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents. However, my recent interviews with children living in the group of islands that includes Tertia show that these children spend much more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. This research of mine proves that Dr. Field’s conclusion about Tertian village culture is invalid and thus the observation-centred approach to studying cultures is invalid as well. The interview-centred method that my team of graduate students is currently using in Tertia will establish much more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions there and in other island cultures.”
In the article written by Dr. Karp, he comes to the conclusion that interview-centred method that his team of graduate students is currently using in Tertia will establish better understanding of child rearing traditions than the observation-centred approach. He essentially provides only one argument to support his conclusion. His argument is full of loopholes and assumptions which fail to convince the reader about its veracity.
Dr. Karp talks about a research carried out twenty years ago by Dr. Field, where he used observation-based approach to study the child rearing culture in Tertia and came to the conclusion that the children were reared by all the adults of the village and not just their biological parents. Dr. Karp, in his recent research finds this to be false. The major fault in his argument lies in the fact that he compares his findings to that of Dr. Field’s research which is twenty years old and therefore, his observation about child rearing at that time might be true as human culture changes from time to time. Two decades is quite a large time interval for cultural changes to take place, especially in today’s world when, due to globalisation, different parts of the world are being influenced by each other. It is quite possible that the people of Tertia have adapted modern methods of the child rearing. Another possibility, in this case could be that the community members drifted apart with time and chose to live as nuclear families. The possibilities, in this case, are endless.
Also, nothing is known about the scope and validity of the interview based approach carried out by his team of graduate students. We do not know if the students of his team have adequate knowledge to ask the right kind of questions which will yield valid answers from a population. The questions could be designed in such a way that the answers have to include the child’ s biological parents. Furthermore, we also do not know if substantial number of children from different parts of the island had been interviewed or the conclusions were drawn based on interview of just three or four children. A group of experts, rather than graduate students might do a better job of carrying out these experimental approaches.
The age group of the children interviewed also matters. This is because the older children will probably be more biased toward their biological parents than the younger ones. The age of the children being interviewed has been mentioned nowhere which again limits the scope of his approach.
Even if we consider that his interview-based method yields better results as compared to the observation based method in the island of Tertia, it might not hold true for other island cultures as people of all cultures might not be open to being interviewed. Other cultures may find it prying and invasive if people from a completely different place with different culture come and ask them questions about their culture. Here an observation based approach will definitely yield better results.
The argument fails to convince the reader that the interview based approach of studying culture is more accurate in understanding the different cultures and that the observation-based approach is completely invalid. The argument could have been substantiated by surveys with wide range and concrete validity. Also, rather than comparing it to a more recent study would have. Made it difficult to questions the author’s conclusion. Therefore, lack of strong evidence has rendered the given argument weak and made the conclusion sound unconvincing.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-05-14 | Anjama Dutta | 55 | view |
- To understand the most important character of society, now must study its major cities. 58
- The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthroplogist.“Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist , visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observation that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village ra 55
- To understand the most important character of society, now must study its major cities. 62
Comments
Essay evaluation report
samples:
https://www.testbig.com/story/gre-argument-essay-topic-21-outline
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 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: 584 350
No. of Characters: 2936 1500
No. of Different Words: 258 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.916 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.027 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.825 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 199 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 164 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 121 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.462 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.106 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.346 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.279 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.514 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.141 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, furthermore, if, may, so, therefore, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 45.0 28.8173652695 156% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 78.0 55.5748502994 140% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3019.0 2260.96107784 134% => OK
No of words: 584.0 441.139720559 132% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16952054795 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.91590194646 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94711181933 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 265.0 204.123752495 130% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.453767123288 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 914.4 705.55239521 130% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 71.5187007447 57.8364921388 124% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.115384615 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.4615384615 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 1.92307692308 5.70786347227 34% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 11.0 4.67664670659 235% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.207538740791 0.218282227539 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0519620276568 0.0743258471296 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0647745256012 0.0701772020484 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0991832197521 0.128457276422 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0674014959392 0.0628817314937 107% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.0 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.05 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 123.0 98.500998004 125% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => 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.