The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist.
“Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observations 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 that the observation-centered approach to studying cultures is invalid as well. The interview-centered method that my team of graduate students is currently using in Tertia will establish a much more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions there and in other island cultures.”
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
Dr. Karp certainly provides strong allegations against Dr. Field’s methods and results, yet leaves much to be desired in regards to his own findings. He is decidedly against Dr. Field in almost every facet, but how much evidence does he actually provide to support his own contrary claims? How much more evidence do we need to be able to agree or disagree with Dr. Karp?
When Dr. Karp mentions his “recent interviews”, he does not specify how many children from Tertia he actually interviewed, or if he interviewed any at all. He simply declares that he spoke with children “living in the group of islands that includes Tertia”. If none of the children, however many there were, were from Tertia, then this argument is invalid, and does not pertain to Dr. Field’s research. However, if most of the children were from Tertia, and these children were many, then there may be validity to his assertions.
Dr. Karp claims that the children he interviewed spent “much more time” talking about their parents than other villagers. This, clearly, is not an exact enough timeframe to draw a conclusion from: “Much more time” could range from a few minutes more to an hour more, which provide vastly different strengths of evidence. In addition to this, were the questions asked to the children given to attempt to extract answers about their parents? The number of leading questions of this kind would surely make a difference on the amount of time spent talking about the children’s parents.
Additionally, if the children spent more time talking about their parents, does this negate the village culture? Are being raised by one’s biological parents and one’s village mutually exclusive? Though this may be the case, it is worth clearly stating this to avoid the confusion created by this underlying assumption. If these are mutually exclusive, and time spent talking about each is a valid measure of which actually raised the child, then this would be sound evidence for Dr. Karp’s conclusion.
Finally, Dr. Karp attacks the observation-centered approach as a whole based on his self-appointed defeat of Dr. Field’s research. However, there is no evidence in the article that stated a reason for the invalidity of studying cultures using the observation-centered approach, other than Dr. Karp’s own research. This is quite insufficient, as there may be many examples of where the observation-centered approach was quite helpful in explaining cultural phenomena. This overall conclusion would need much more evidence from a broad array of cultural studies to definitively reject observation as a central method.
Evidently, this article excerpt is lacking many important points of evidence, reducing its overall effectiveness and persuasiveness. However, once this evidence is included, not only could it show more clearly the weaknesses in Dr. Karp’s argument, but it may actually bolster his position, and give him a much stronger ground to rest his conclusion upon.
- The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist.“Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village r 70
- The best way to teach is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and su 60
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: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 480 350
No. of Characters: 2418 1500
No. of Different Words: 225 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.681 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.038 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.793 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 176 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 145 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 90 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.857 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.026 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.336 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.609 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.195 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 124, Rule ID: IN_REGARD_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'regarding' or 'with regard to'.
Suggestion: regarding; with regard to
... results, yet leaves much to be desired in regards to his own findings. He is decidedly again...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, however, if, may, so, then, in addition, talking about
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2588.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 480.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.39166666667 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68069463864 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.13037801121 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 240.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.5 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 776.7 705.55239521 110% => 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: 1.0 8.76447105788 11% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 8.0 1.67365269461 478% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 35.2581024284 57.8364921388 61% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.238095238 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.8571428571 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.71428571429 5.70786347227 65% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.265791703614 0.218282227539 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.092321205691 0.0743258471296 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0595401153855 0.0701772020484 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.142036550109 0.128457276422 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0608691498419 0.0628817314937 97% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => 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: 14.28 12.5979740519 113% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.74 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.