0910AW同主题写作第三期argument242 by dacongfan

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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."

The editorial recommends that institutions with dramatic rise in cheating should adopt the honor codes applied in Groveton(G). To support the recommendation, the author points out that G has applied the honor codes and it was proven to be successful. The author also cites a recent survey conducted by the G honor council showing that students are less likely to cheat with an honor code than without. Although the argument seems logically well-reasoned, I find it specious on several grounds.

In the first place, the author simply assumes that G and other institutions annoyed with cheating are similar enough to make any analogies. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case. It is of great possibility that students in those colleges troubled by cheating suffer from more stress than from G. Also possible is that students in those colleges might be of lower abilities yet they are eager to get higher scores and possess greater opportunities to find good jobs, thus cheating in exams. In short, without providing the sufficient evidence to prove that G and other institutions are sufficiently similar, it is impossible for the author to convince me the feasibility of his conclusion.

In the second place, even though G and other institutions are analogous, the author fails to rule out other possibilities that might contribute to the decrease in reported cheating in G. Perhaps more students cheated in the exam but few of them were reported due to the lack of teachers’ monitor. Or perhaps the fact that students who were admitted into G are of higher educational level than before. If either of the scenario is true, the author cannot justifiably rely on the numbers reported to conclude that the measure is successful, let alone the suggestion that all other institutions annoyed by cheating adopt the way.

Last but not the least, even if the author could substantiate the foregoing assumptions, he takes it for granted that the survey’s result is statistically reliable. However, he fails to offer any evidence to assure that this is the case. It is greatly possible that the size of the sample is relatively small and as we all know that the smaller the size of the sample, the less reliable the result of the survey. Also of much possibility is that the students responding are not representative of the overall students in G. In short, lacking such important information, it is impossible for the author to confidently rely on the survey to draw any conclusion whatsoever.

In sum, the argument is completely unpersuasive as it stands. To better assess the argument, it would be useful to know the detailed information about the other institutions and G. Also useful would be that the cheating really deceased in G and it is really due to the adoption of the honor codes. In addition, I need better to know the sufficient information about the survey, such as the size of the sample, the answering percentage and so forth.

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