0910G【Try Best】第二小组 argument242 by vieri3221

vieri3221UID: 2611149

A 242
The 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."
=============================================================
This editorial recommends that the institutions like colleges and university should adopt honor codes similar to Goventon(G)'s to reduce the crazy increase of the reported cheating. To support this recommendation, the author points out that the number of reported cheating in G's is less than before, he/she also points out that the students in G's said, according to the recent survey, that they would not cheat anymore with the honor codes. The recommendation sounds reasonable firstly, however, it bases on several mistake assumptions and unbelievable evidences.

Firstly, the author regards, by mistake, that the number of cheating reports directly shows how many students cheat, but actually there is no such explicit relationship between these two. In real world, no matter who is monitoring in their academic endeavors, the reason why many students still cheat without obeying the codes is the fact that not all of them will be caught by the monitor, such as teachers and other students. Therefore, the majority of them will take a gamble on their luckiness or so-called "skills", prevent form being seen cheating. If they succeed to cheat in an examination, for example, the monitor will not report for not attentioning the cheating act. So, it is hard to say the more reported means the more cheating and the less reported means the less cheating.

Moreover, as for the author, the codes contribute to the dramatically rise in cheating reports, therefore, the most efficient way to handle this manner is to change another well-done codes, like the honor codes. Perhaps codes are the part of increasing reports, whereas there are other reasons, maybe more significant, cause this phenomena as students’ attitude upon cheating. If students consider cheating as just a way for obtaining a higher grade rather than a terrible problem in the reason that the lesson they learnt is too difficult and useless to spend much time on it, they will still do not really obey the honor codes. So, making students know the dangerous effect on cheating, along with the help of codes will probably the better way to decrease cheating in academic endeavors.

Even if cheating correlates the number of reports and the better codes do make help, there is no adequate evidence to prove that the G’s honor codes are successful. In this argument, the author pointed out the number of G's cheating is less reported by students than by teachers and also reduces in the past five years with the honor codes, it does not mean that less students cheat than before, nevertheless, the real fact maybe that students do not report though they see a cheating act.
In addition, the recent survey mentioned in the argument also has nothing to help testify the success of the honor codes. According to the survey, though the students demonstrate that it is less impossible for them to cheat since the honor codes, what they say is not usually equal with what they do. Since the survey do not show the investigation on the real acts in the situation the students are taking the academic endeavors, it is hard to say the honor codes can do a good work.

Finally, the honor codes similar to G’s may not adapted to other colleges or universities, even though the codes are proved to be successful, is just a typical one so that the honor codes cannot be utilized to other institutions. Honesty is most important to the honor codes. The old-fashioned codes calls teacher's responsibilities, by contrast, the honor ones are controlled by students. So if other institutions’ students take much more concerns on the grade they get, obviously, they will not report who have cheated because all of them do the same way. Therefore, using the honor codes similar to G's does no benefit to other institutions.

In conclusion, the argument is not well reasoned as it stands. To make the argument more convincing, the author should have a more complete understanding about how to reduce cheating and the value of the codes preventing students form cheating. Moreover, the author should provide more useful information, especially the information linked to the survey, to strongly prove the author’s recommendation.