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 aforementioned argument is well-presented and appears to be relatively cogent at first glance: since the number of reports on cheating has decreased over the years, it is plausible to argue that Groveton College has successfully reduced student cheating by adopting honor codes. However, as more light is shed on issue and more detailed facts are concerned, the lack of answers through the argument leads me to question the validity of it.

First of all, the author needs to answer the question whether the implementation of honor codes yielded the decrease in numbers of cheating in Groveton College. Since fewer and fewer numbers of student cheating were reported over the five years, the author hastily assumes that the result was caused by the honor code. However, the author should take account of other factors that might lead to the reduction in cheating. For instance, the number of students has continuously decreased over the five years, and as a result of this change, the number of cheating decreased naturally. In such a case, it would be hard to assert that installing the honor codes is effective. Therefore, more information should be provided to corroborate the effectiveness of the honor codes on cheating.

Another question the author should answer is whether the decreased number of cheating represents the reduced number of actual cheating cases. The author rashly believes that the actual student cheating have declined since fewer numbers of reports on cheating have been received. However, in all likelihood, students may opt to not reporting the cheating cases since they became negligent to adhere to the honor codes. In such a case, there is a possibility that cheating might be still prevalent in Groveton College, and thus, illogical to argue that the honor code has decrease the number of student cheating.

Lastly, the author should answer whether the success of Groveton College can be generalized as the success of other colleges and universities. Without considering the inherent difference between Groveton and other colleges, the author argues that adopting plan similar to honor codes will reap a myriad of benefits to those colleges. However, if other colleges have more amicable and closer student bonding, receiving reports about other students’ cheating from students may be unlikely. If this would be the case, unlike the author’s claim, the honor codes will not reduce the number of student cheating. Therefore, more concrete facts about each college are necessary to strengthen the argument.

To sum up, the argument above is not persuasive on many grounds. To bolster the argument, the author should all the questions mentioned above.