Evidence suggests that academic honor codes, which call for students to agree not to cheat in their academic endeavors and to notify a faculty member if they suspect that others have cheated, are far more successful than are other methods at deterring cheating among students at colleges and universities. Several years ago, Groveton College adopted such a code and discontinued its old-fashioned system in which teachers closely monitored students. Under the old system, teachers reported an average of thirty cases of cheating per year. In the first year the honor code 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.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
This argument is based on an editorial in the student newspaper of Groveton College. As per this editorial, the institutions should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton’s to combat the recently reported dramatic rise in cheating among college and university students. The author has pointed out the effectiveness of the honor codes system in Groveton College. However, this argument contains several critical flaws, which render it unpersuasive.
First of all, the author gives the conclusion without comparing the situation of other institutions with that of Groveton College. The author has not given enough details about the measures taken by Groveton College. There might be some other measures also, which were put into execution at the same time with the honor codes system, that must have helped to abate the cheating number of students. There is also a possibility of the exam becoming easier for the students. Hence, there is a probability of the other changes being effective instead of the honor codes system. Even if the honor codes system is effective in Groveton, it does not necessarily mean that it will have the same effect in other institutions. The author should have ruled out these possibilities before concluding the argument.
Secondly, it is wrong on our part to assume that simply by saying that the students agree not to cheat in exams, these students actually will not cheat. It is quite possible that they tell lies and they will cheat irrespective of what they have promised. Similarly, suspecting a student of cheating does not mean that he is really cheating. May be the student who is suspected by another one actually does not cheat. If that be the case, then it will be wrong to punish that student and being wrongly suspected by other student will harm the relationship between the two students.
The author has also said that that the honor code is successful by only showing that five years later the number of cheats declined to fourteen from twenty-one in the first year. However, he failed to consider that it is also possible that many students just do not want to inform their faculty when they suspect that someone is cheating. The number of cases reported does not necessarily mean the number of actual cases. It might be possible that students have reduced reporting the cases or they have lost faith in the new honor code system. Without considering and ruling out these and other possible explanations, the author’s conclusion is doubtful.
In addition, the reduction from 21 cases to 14 cases is not a great improvement to have taken place in 5 years. It might have been that proper counseling sessions had been given to the students in these five years and it might have made them reform their old ways. In that case, more emphasis should be given to providing successful counseling sessions to students rather than embracing the new honor code.
The author should have given details of a survey where students were asked the reasons why they cheat in exams. He should have collected reliable inputs from the faculty members regarding the new honor codes system and the other measures to stop cheating. That should have supported his argument in a much better way.
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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: 13 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 540 350
No. of Characters: 2627 1500
No. of Different Words: 234 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.821 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.865 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.462 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 175 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 98 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 44 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.594 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.519 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.294 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.52 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.114 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 346, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[8]
Message: The proper name in singular (May) must be used with a third-person verb: 'is'.
Suggestion: is
...ot mean that he is really cheating. May be the student who is suspected by another...
^^
Line 7, column 26, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: that
...o students. The author has also said that that the honor code is successful by only sh...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, hence, however, if, may, really, regarding, second, secondly, similarly, so, then, in addition, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 24.0 13.6137724551 176% => OK
Pronoun: 50.0 28.8173652695 174% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2694.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 540.0 441.139720559 122% => OK
Chars per words: 4.98888888889 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.82057051367 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.54978145329 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 238.0 204.123752495 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.440740740741 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 828.9 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 4.96107784431 242% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 36.1442393151 57.8364921388 62% => OK
Chars per sentence: 99.7777777778 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.0 23.324526521 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.85185185185 5.70786347227 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.313620792503 0.218282227539 144% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0885585529969 0.0743258471296 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0579526605153 0.0701772020484 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.167945664384 0.128457276422 131% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.050658323334 0.0628817314937 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 14.3799401198 84% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.66 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.79 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 108.0 98.500998004 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
---------------------
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.