Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia. Using an observation-centered approach to studying Tertian culture, he concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents. Recently another anthropologist, Dr. Karp, visited the group of islands that includes Tertia and used the interview-centered method to study child-rearing practices. In the interviews that Dr. Karp conducted with children living in this group of islands, the children spent much more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. Dr. Karp decided that Dr. Field's conclusion about Tertian village culture must be invalid. Some anthropologists recommend that to obtain accurate information on Tertian child-rearing practices, future research on the subject should be conducted via the interview-centered method.
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 the article, Dr. Karp concludes that his interview-centric method is better suited to studying child-rearing traditions in Tertia and other islands compared to observation-centric method adopted by Dr. Field twenty years ago. He supports his argument by mentioning that children talk more about their biological parents when interviewd, thus invalidating Dr. Field's observation that the children in Tertia were reared by an entire village equally. However, this conlusion is based on certain unstated assumptions, which must be carefully evaluated.
Firstly, the research by Dr. Karp is conducted twenty years after Dr. Field's research. During this long period of time, there might have been external influences which changed the culture of the people in Tertia. Maybe the children were raised by the entire villege twenty years ago, but that changed gradually owing to the influence of outside world. In that case, we cannot conclude that Dr. Field's observation-centered method is faulty compared to Dr. Karp's interview-centered method, since both methods came up with correct conclusions based on the time when they were conducted.
Secondly, Dr. Karp assumes that the people whom he and his team interviewed represent the entire population of Tertia. There could have been sampling bias when they choose the people to be interviewed. It could have happened that most of people that they interviewed were raised by their own biological parents, but that might not be true for the rest of the population. Majority of the children might still be raised by the entire population.
Thirdly, it is also a possibilty that children tend to speak more about their biological parents even though they are raised equally by all the villagers. Dr. Karp inherently assumes that if the children are raised by all the villagers, then they do not speak more about their biological parents. But, this need not necessarily be true. The children might still be able to distinguish thier biological parents from rest of the villagers, and maybe that is why the spoke more about them in the interview. Concluding that Dr. Field's observation that children are raised equally by all the villagers is invalid just because they spoke more about their biological parents when interviewed is based on above stated assumption, which may not be true.
Therefore, we can see that even if the article seems convincing about the superiority of interview-centered method compared to observation-centered method, the argument seems to be based on several unstated assumptions. The conclution might not necessarily hold true if these assumptions were to be false.
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Comments
e-rater score 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: 18 15
No. of Words: 417 350
No. of Characters: 2183 1500
No. of Different Words: 181 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.519 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.235 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.021 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 153 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 115 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.167 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.971 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.778 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.359 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.591 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.16 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 105, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...r Dr. Fields research. During this long period of time, there might have been external influen...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 231, Rule ID: MOST_SOME_OF_NNS[1]
Message: After 'most of', you should use 'the' ('most of the people') or simply say ''most people''.
Suggestion: most of the people; most people
...nterviewed. It could have happened that most of people that they interviewed were raised by th...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, third, thirdly, thus
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 24.0 13.6137724551 176% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2230.0 2260.96107784 99% => OK
No of words: 417.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.34772182254 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5189133491 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.08671382196 2.78398813304 111% => OK
Unique words: 192.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.460431654676 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 666.0 705.55239521 94% => 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: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.7574869643 57.8364921388 105% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.888888889 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.1666666667 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.16666666667 5.70786347227 108% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.27787007584 0.218282227539 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0906655593841 0.0743258471296 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0913524415605 0.0701772020484 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.171879192201 0.128457276422 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.123452463057 0.0628817314937 196% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.05 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.15 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.