In 1912 a bookseller named Wilfrid M Voynich acquired a beautifully illustrated handwritten book manuscript written on vellum vellum is a material that was used for writing before the introduction of paper The Voynich manuscript as it became known resembl

Essay topics:

In 1912 a bookseller named Wilfrid M. Voynich acquired a beautifully illustrated handwritten book (manuscript) written on vellum (vellum is a material that was used for writing before the introduction of paper). The “Voynich manuscript,” as it became known, resembles manuscripts written in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. However, it is written in a completely unknown script. To date, no one has been able to decode the script and understand the book’s content. Several theories have been proposed to explain the origin of the Voynich manuscript.
One theory is that the manuscript is a genuine work on some scientific or magical subject composed in a complex secret code. Anthony Ascham, a sixteenth-century physician and botanist, has been identified as a possible author, since many plant illustrations in the Voynich manuscript are quite similar to those in Ascham’s book on medicinal plants, A Little Herbal, published in 1550.
According to some other theories, the manuscript is really a fake and its text has no real meaning. For example, it has been proposed the manuscript was created by Edward Kelley, a sixteenth-century personality who extracted money from nobles across Europe by pretending to have magical powers. Kelley may have created the manuscript as a fake magical book to sell to a wealthy noble. He used a made-up alphabet in a completely random order. It looks like a book of magical secrets, but there is no meaningful underlying text.
Another theory is that the manuscript is actually a modern fake created by Wilfrid M. Voynich himself. As an antique book dealer, Voynich certainly had the knowledge of what old manuscripts should look like and could have created a fake one. Perhaps Voynich’s plan was to sell the fake as a mysterious old book if he received an attractive offer.

Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.

None of the three people mentioned in the reading was probably the author of the Voynich manuscript.

According to the first theory, whoever wrote the Voynich manuscript thought they were conveying information so important or so powerful that they used a special code to keep it secret. That doesn’t fit what we know about Anthony Ascham. Ascham was just an ordinary physician and scientist whose books didn’t contain any original ideas. For instance, the Little Herbal mentioned in the reading was a description of common plants based on other well-known sources. So, given what we know about Ascham, his books, and the kind of knowledge he had, it seems unlikely he was the author of such an elaborately coded, secret document.

Second, although Edward Kelley was notoriously good at tricking people, it seems unlikely that he created the Voynich manuscript as a fake magical book to sell to some rich people. You see, the creator of the Voynich manuscript took a lot of care to make the text look like a real code; but people in the sixteenth century were quite easy to fool, so it was not necessary to make something this complex. If Kelley wanted to create a fake for money, there’s no reason he would’ve put so much work into creating a manuscript like this when a much simpler book would have suited his purpose just as well.

Third, we’ve been able to date the manuscript materials using modern methods—both the vellum pages and the ink on the pages. Both the vellum and the ink are at least 400 years old. That rules out Voynich as the author. If Voynich wanted to create a fake, maybe he could use vellum pages taken from some old manuscripts, but where would he get 400-year-old ink? So it seems the manuscript was created centuries before Voynich obtained it.

Question
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge the specific theories presented in the reading passage.

In the regard to the issue of the Voynich manuscript. The reading passage points out that some explanations of the origin of the manuscript. Whereas the writer and the lecturer are apparently sheer contradictory to each other.

Firstly, according to the author, the symbols in the manuscript are secret code about some scientific or magical subject since they were similar to Anthony Ascham's book on medicinal plants. The speaker, however, disclaims the point of view and declares that someone wrote it in special code because the content is important and powerful, Ascham was just an ordinary scientist and the contents in his books are common knowledge and well-known resources, instead of original ideas. Hence he is unlikely the author of elaborated and secret document.

Secondly, the reading holds that Edward Kelly made a fake, magical book from Voynich's manuscript for selling to the wealthy nobles. By contrast, the professor disproves the claim of the reading, demonstrating that Edward is unlikely the one who made the book. Further, the creator paid a lot of effort to make the text in Voynich’s manuscript look like a real code. Although Edward wanted to trick people, it was not necessary to make a fake manuscript so complex since it was easy to fool people in that period.

Finally, the article asserts that Voynich created a fake manuscript himself because he knew what old manuscripts should look like, it could make him create a fake one and sell the fake old book to receive offers. On the other hand, the listening maintains an opposite opinion that the ink used on the manuscripts are four hundred years old, even someone wanted to make a fake one, it is also impossible to get a four-hundred ink.

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Average: 8.8 (1 vote)
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Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 481, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...n resources, instead of original ideas. Hence he is unlikely the author of elaborated...
^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, apparently, finally, first, firstly, hence, however, if, look, second, secondly, so, well, whereas, even so, on the other hand

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 10.4613686534 115% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 2.0 5.04856512141 40% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 7.30242825607 110% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 12.0772626932 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 22.412803532 80% => OK
Preposition: 38.0 30.3222958057 125% => OK
Nominalization: 1.0 5.01324503311 20% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1444.0 1373.03311258 105% => OK
No of words: 289.0 270.72406181 107% => OK
Chars per words: 4.99653979239 5.08290768461 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.12310562562 4.04702891845 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66089290454 2.5805825403 103% => OK
Unique words: 169.0 145.348785872 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.584775086505 0.540411800872 108% => OK
syllable_count: 449.1 419.366225166 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 3.25607064018 92% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 2.5761589404 194% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 13.0662251656 92% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 21.2450331126 113% => OK
Sentence length SD: 68.228934478 49.2860985944 138% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.333333333 110.228320801 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.0833333333 21.698381199 111% => OK
Discourse Markers: 11.0 7.06452816374 156% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 4.45695364238 90% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.27373068433 117% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.193413888752 0.272083759551 71% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0770439523822 0.0996497079465 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0603199571767 0.0662205650399 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.117350889585 0.162205337803 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0371804880521 0.0443174109184 84% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 13.3589403974 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 53.8541721854 87% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 11.0289183223 115% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.02 12.2367328918 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.98 8.42419426049 107% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 63.6247240618 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 10.498013245 110% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 88.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 26.5 Out of 30
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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.