242The following appeared as an editorial in the student newspaper of Groveton College.
"To combat the recently reported dramatic rise in cheating among college and university students, these institutions should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's, which calls for students to agree not to cheat in their academic endeavors and to notify a faculty member if they suspect that others have cheated. Groveton's honor code replaced an old-fashioned system in which students were closely monitored by teachers and an average of thirty cases of cheating per year were reported. The honor code has proven far more successful: in the first year it was in place, students reported twenty-one cases of cheating; five years later, this figure had dropped to fourteen. Moreover, in a recent survey conducted by the Groveton honor council, a majority of students said that they would be less likely to cheat with an honor code in place than without."
In this argument, the author concludes that the honor has a obvious effect on the cheating of students. At first glance, the author’s reasoning seems to be appealing, while clearly examining the author’s reasoning, we may find that it is unconvincing. The argument contains several facets that are questionable.
First of all, the author’s evidences are insufficient to support the conclusion. Obviously, author does not provide enough information on the subjects of the survey. We are told nothing about the way the survey was conducted and how well it represented the public opinions. The survey said that the number of cheating had been reduced just because the reported number in the fifth year is 14 while 21 in the first year. However, this cannot prove anything. It is possible that the number is 30 in the third year. We cannot draw a conclusion that the number had been reduced. Besides that, the reason of the decreasing of the cheating number may not be that fewer students cheat, it maybe the students won’t reported anything about cheating.
Secondly, the author made a point that the students had agreed not to cheat anymore. But how can we believe such promise? There are no any reasons to convince us to believe in what they said. The promise didn’t mean that they actually won’t cheat .No one would admit that he would cheat in the exam.
In addition, the same method to prevent cheating may not be suitable for different colleges for the reasons causing the cheating is different.
To sum up, the conclusion lacks of credibility. To strengthen the conclusion, the author should give more evidences about the above-mentioned possibilities.
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