The following appeared as an editorial in the student newspaper of Groveton College."To combat the recently reported dramatic rise in cheating among college students, colleges and universities should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's, which calls fo

The argument is underscoring a policy implemented by Goverton college and the resulting ameliorative effects on the reporting on cheating. The author of the argument suggests that there has been a major decrease in the number of reported cheating cases, thereby the policy implemented by Groveton College should be replicated by other colleges and universities as well. The author bolsters the recommendation provided in the argument citing the decrease in the reporting of cases of cheating over the years and also further corroborates its conclusions regarding its effectiveness by presenting a conclusion from a survey. The argument is rife with loopholes and the argument makes many implications, but does not provide proper evidences for them. Overall, the argument lacks documents to support it, thereby it does not make a cogent case.

The argument suggests that the implementation of honor code has resulted in the decrease of reporting of cheating cases over the past 5 years. The argument implies that the policy of honor code is implemented by students, therefore raises quandaries regarding the vigilance provided by students, the degree of honesty among students and whether they carry out their duty diligently or in a perfunctory manner. For example, students, who are also attempting the test, would be less vigilant than the teachers. Furthermore, due to peer circles or self-involvement in cheating, students might not report cases as well as teachers do. The author provides no evidences regarding the validity of the decrease in reporting, may be there has been only decrease in the cases reported but the actually instances of cheating has increased. Furthermore, the author fails to provide the comparison between, the reports of the teacher and the reports by the student. It may be possible that teachers actually reported majority of the cheating cases, while students could only catch a few of them. The argument also fails to provide evidence regarding, the conduct of students when imposed with an honor code. Do the students become more veracious? Is the honor code followed by all the students? Such questions rise regarding the efficacy of the honor code. The lack of evidences on the effectiveness of the policy, question the authenticity of the argument itself.

The citing of survey, further puts the argument into a state of doubt in the mind of the reader, as the argument fails to provide any evidences regarding the total participants of the study and also the type of questions asked in the question. The students may have been asked to choose between having an honor code and some other strict policy. Additionally, the argument fails to provide evidences regarding the percentage of students who took part, may be the view is only of a minor section of the students out of the total population at Groveton College. Also, the argument fails to provide evidence regarding the amount of students who actually supported the implementation of honor code, may be only just above half of the surveyed students championed the policy, suggesting that a large portion of the students surveyed do not support the policy. The survey statistics, could either bolster or hamper the argument based on the information, without these facts, the survey is unwarranted.

Lastly, the author recommends the use of the policy of honor code in other colleges and universities. It fails to provide evidences regarding how this policy would be appropriate for other colleges. May be the students at Groveton College, do not like to be supervised, the same view might not be shared by all the other colleges. Additionally, the author has not provided any concrete evidences supporting its claim that honor code has helped to combat the cheating at Groveton College, may be contrary to the authors conclusion, cheating is more rampant in Groveton College than in other colleges. The evidences regarding the efficacy of honor code and the actual statistical data supporting the author's conclusion would make the argument more convincing, however due to the lack of such evidences the argument is seriously weakened.

In conclusion, although the author suggests that the policy of honor code has been effective and was accepted by the students, the lack of evidences to bolster the claims and conclusions, make the argument inconsequential. The author could provide a comparative study on both reports by teachers and by student following honor code at Groveton College, to make the argument more convincing. However, due to the lack of concrete evidences and statistics, the recommendation of the author, would not be considered.