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.
In this article, Dr. Karp states that observational research done by Dr. Field was not valid enough to substantiate children in Tertia were fostered by the village, not their real parents. To bolster the claim, Dr. Karp’s uses of interviews with the children found that they often mention their biological parents during the interview. However, some specific evidence needs to be provided by the author.
The first piece of evidence needs to be offered is that Dr. Field did his observations twenty years ago, how does Dr. Karp know that the village has not changed among these years? We don’t know the information about the possible changes in the entire village. For example, behaviors and people’s attitudes toward rearing these children by their biological parents might change. In the past, when village people were having more interactions with each other, and they lived close to each other, so every child could have meals or play with other village people instead of stayed in their own homes alone. Twenty years later, the village might become too big to live close to each other, so children might not meet other people every day, they need to depend on their biological parents to bring them up. Therefore, without the credence about possible changes of the village, it’s not indispensable to say Dr. Field’s observations are invalid.
The second piece of evidence that needs to be offered by the author to support his claim is the actual place when doing the interview because the article merely states it’s children living in the group of islands includes Tertia. What if the author’s team have an interview with children who are living outside Tertia? Children live in other parts of the island might not be Tertia, which could be other villages near Tertia. Also, children from different villages could have different cultures from Tertia that children live in Tertia might be reared by the whole village, but children from other areas would be brought up by their biological parents. Therefore, the interview’s location does not support the validation of it since they might do the interview with children do not live in Tertia, so more proofs about where does the interview take place is necessary to give.
The third piece of evidence that should be provided is the real interview questions the team asks the children. Without knowing the questions, we could not make sure that these questions are tending to lead those children to answer in a certain way. For example, if the question is to ask these children who cook more meals for them, they would likely to answer that their biological parents cook more meals. Also, even though these questions are known, we are not clarified how these children answer these questions. If they merely mention their biological parents more than other people in the village, it could not be inferred that their biological parents actually rear them. Accordingly, the exact questions and how these children answer these questions are necessary for us to know so that the claim could be substantiated.
All in all, the claim from Dr. Karp needs more specific evidence to be supported. The first one is that probable changes in the village should be determined. The second one is the exact location of the interview needs to be clarified. The third one is that the interview questions should be introduced. With these credence to support Dr. Karp’s argument would strength and valid it.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 25 15
No. of Words: 576 350
No. of Characters: 2808 1500
No. of Different Words: 222 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.899 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.875 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.363 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 189 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 141 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.04 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.476 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.72 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.328 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.532 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.164 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 236, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...of the interview needs to be clarified. The third one is that the interview questio...
^^^
Line 9, column 309, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this credence' or 'these credences'?
Suggestion: this credence; these credences
...ew questions should be introduced. With these credence to support Dr. Karp's argument wou...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, actually, also, but, first, however, if, second, so, therefore, third, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 53.0 28.8173652695 184% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 76.0 55.5748502994 137% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2924.0 2260.96107784 129% => OK
No of words: 575.0 441.139720559 130% => OK
Chars per words: 5.0852173913 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.89685180668 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.55422197655 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 232.0 204.123752495 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.40347826087 0.468620217663 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 869.4 705.55239521 123% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.2728514084 57.8364921388 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.96 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.0 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.8 5.70786347227 67% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 18.0 4.67664670659 385% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.195957547096 0.218282227539 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0637363249618 0.0743258471296 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0635623543227 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.120356788576 0.128457276422 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0604685344 0.0628817314937 96% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.54 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.22 8.32208582834 87% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.