According to a recent report, cheating among college and university students is on the rise. However, Groveton College has successfully reduced student cheating by adopting an honor code, which calls for students to agree not to cheat in their academic en

The arguer has recommended that in order to reduce cheating , all colleges and universities should adopt honor code. The conclusion is based on the premise that implementation of honor code has helped Groveton College in reducing number of cheating and some numbers have been put forwarded to support its justification. At first, the argument looks convincing to readers. But on a closer analysis, it is found to be rife with loopholes and assumptions which renders the argument unjustifiable.

To begin with, honor code makes a student promise not to cheat in their academics and draw attention of a faculty member if they suspect that other have cheated. This code is entirely based on the assumption that students will always say the truth. In academic endeavors, students may depend on one another and work in groups while cheating. In order to save themselves, they may vouch for one another which makes the honor code invalidated for purpose of stopping the cheating. As this honor code replaces the system where teachers play a major role to notify cheating, it will actually have an adverse effect on the purpose as teacher solely depend on the truthfulness of their students. As a result, it highly possible that inspite of number of cheating increases , still implementation of honor code leaves many of such cheating unreported.

Secondly, a survey results have been put forwarded to bolster the argument that indeed implementation of honor code in Groveton college has improved the numbers of cheating. However, instead of providing some percentages, some absolute numbers have been thrown at us. It is likely that number of students joining Groveton are declining over the years and if we look at percentages, then that is actually higher than previous years. Even if we assume that number of new students remain almost same over the years, still there may be some other possibility like installing surveillance cameras in classroom and monitoring them all the time that may contribute to reduction in cheating. Without ensuring that there is no other factor contributing to it, the survey results remains unconvincing. Also the validity of survey can be questioned as they entirely rely on promise of the students who may lie for their own sake.

Thirdly, it has been assumed that whatever proved fruitful for Groveton will also prove beneficial for all other colleges and universities. Student quality varies from college to college and from one year to the other. It may be the case that during last five years, quality of students in Groveton has gradually improved who rely on their own knowledge rather than cheating in exams. This makes implementing honor code having no effect on its students. But the same cannot be said for all colleges throughout the nation as students quality will surely vary. Unless quality of students are taken into account for each individual college and measures are taken accordingly to its students qualities, suggesting the same procedure for all colleges at one go wouldn’t be effective.

In conclusion, the given argument fails to justify arguer’s recommendation. To bolster his recommendation , the author needs to provide sufficient evidence to prove that students are indeed saying the truth and going according to the honor code, prove that ther are no other reason for which the students are avoiding cheating in Groveton college or provide a comparative analysis of all colleges and universities to show that what worked for Groveton would work for all of the other colleges also. In absense of all of these evidences, the current recommendation cannot be implemented in current state.