ARGUMENT(22)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

Merely based on unfounded supposition and evidence, the statement draws a conclusion that honor codes should be adopted among other colleges and universities similar to Groveton, due to the effectiveness of the measure conduced in Groveton in reducing cheating. At first glance, the argument appears to be somewhat convincing, but further reflection reveals that it omits some substantial concerns that should be addressed, thus, not cogent enough.

To start with, the author of the argument assumes too hastily that the reducation in the period when implementing new policy in cheating necessarily indicates that the system in which teachers closely monitored students was not effective. While the new honor code may really be more useful in controlling the phenomena of cheating among students, a concrete connection between the decrease of cheating cases reported and the effectiveness of the old system is not made forcefully. Perhaps, for example, cases were known decreased just because teachers were more responsible in observing whether the students were making a cheating. This statement is unacceptable unless more evidence are showed to support the connection.

In addition, the arguer claims that Groveton College has successfully reduced student cheating by adopting the new method, because during the last five years cases involved in cheating reported by students had an obvious drop. This assumption is unwarranted because other conditions and possibilities are not showed, to clarify, the author assumes without justification of a myriad of possible factors, ranging from whether this number is the actual data of all cheating situations to the change in amount of all students in this college. If the students were used to survive under the rule of honor code, and they begun to collude with each other to avoid being caught, it will be rather precarious to conclude like above.

Finally, this statement relies on a shaky presumption that the recent survey is valid and reliable enough to show that a majority of students in Groveton would not likely to conduct a cheat. However, there is absolutely no proof provided that this survey is implemented with due consideration. If students involved in the research had been afraid or shamed to speak the truth, or the number and scope of students as samples in the survey are not representative, the result of the study will be meaningless. Any scenarios above, if true, will definitely undermine the validity of the survey.

To sum up, the author fails to claim that Groveton College has successfully reduced cheating among students and reliable enough to be a sample to other universities and colleges to study its honor codes. Without additional evidence, however, we should be wary about accepting the truth of the argument’s conclusion.