Several years ago, Groveton College adopted 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. The honor code has proven far more successful: in the first year it 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. Such evidence suggests that all colleges and universities should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's. This change is sure to result in a dramatic decline in cheating among college students.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The author of the argument indicates that all colleges and universities should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's in order to decrease cheating among students. To buttress his/her argument, the author cites the following evidences: first, cheating reported has declined from twenty-one to fourteen after five years; third, many Groveton students said that they would be less likely to cheat in a recent survey. Tough the issue has its merit, due to unanswered questions and unaddressed assumptions, the conclusion is unsubstantiated.
To begin with, the author argues that under honor code system, the reported cheating has decreased from 21 to 14 over the recent five years, thus substantiating the strength of honor code. The argument may seem valid at first glance, after further examination, it is fallacious. The cheating reported is not necessarily the correct indication of the exact cheating numbers. What if some cases of cheating are not reported when students collude? What if students forget to report the cheating? For students who stress unity and do not want to betray peers, they are not plausible to report the cheating even if they notice one. Since the amount of real cheating is not measured, we are unable to make any comparison.
Furthermore, the author fails to consider the change over the five years. The students in Groveton can be in general more honest due to their previous education or learning from their parents. The total enrollment in Groveton might be decline. If these happen, then the declined number of cheating is not related to honor code. The author fails to consider the case when honor code is not applied. The condition in recent years may be even better without honor code, but we just do not know. Without well-designed experiment of cheating under students with same quality, the conclusion made by the author is not convincing.
Moreover, a recent survey might not be a persuasive evidence to support the goodness of honor code. We are not given detailed information of the survey, including questionnaires, participants, sample space and so on. For example, the survey might be only based on 5 students, with 4 students advocating the usage of honor code. Even though huge percentage of students have less tendency to cheat, these ten individuals are not representative of all students in Groveton. The result of survey from graduating seniors perhaps is not as persuasive as that from incoming freshmen. The survey could be 10 page long with only one question related to honor code. Students then can be careless or even not telling the truth when answering the question in front of overwhelming problems. Because the author does not offer the comprehensive survey of all groups of students, the argument is invalid.
Last but not least, the author unfairly applies honor code to the all the colleges and universities. The characteristics of different colleges and universities can vary a lot. Even if honor code is proven to be useful in Groveton, no evidence shows that it will be equally feasible in other colleges. For example, if a university already has its standard judgement and penalty for cheating, then honor code could be useless or even counterproductive.
To sum up, as it stands, the assumptions are based on several questionable evidences that curtail the credibility of the argument. To further strengthen the reliability, the author is suggested to provide the evidences as follows: first, comparison before and after the application of honor code is warranted; second, the survey regarding with honor code is well designed by experts and is a strong indicator of opinions of all groups of students; finally, honor code can be widely used even under different circumstances.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 31 15
No. of Words: 617 350
No. of Characters: 3086 1500
No. of Different Words: 274 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.984 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.002 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.788 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 221 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 170 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 136 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.903 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.199 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.613 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.289 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.487 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.108 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...conclusion is unsubstantiated. To begin with, the author argues that un...
^^
Line 5, column 630, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e by the author is not convincing. Moreover, a recent survey might not be a...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 601, Rule ID: CD_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun 'page' seems to be countable, so consider using: 'pages'.
Suggestion: pages
...coming freshmen. The survey could be 10 page long with only one question related to ...
^^^^
Line 11, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ounterproductive. To sum up, as it stands, the assumptions...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, furthermore, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, so, then, third, thus, well, for example, in general, to begin with, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 86.0 55.5748502994 155% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3215.0 2260.96107784 142% => OK
No of words: 611.0 441.139720559 139% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.26186579378 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.97176167858 4.56307096286 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.12704587336 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 292.0 204.123752495 143% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.47790507365 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 982.8 705.55239521 139% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 23.0 8.76447105788 262% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 86.6827063585 57.8364921388 150% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.821428571 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8214285714 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.35714285714 5.70786347227 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.300648414444 0.218282227539 138% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0898343431461 0.0743258471296 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.060414865119 0.0701772020484 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.179060984532 0.128457276422 139% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0254162301621 0.0628817314937 40% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.3 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.4 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 144.0 98.500998004 146% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.