Question : Summarise the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they case doubt on specific points made in the reading passage.
Private collectors have been selling and buying fossils, the petrified remains of ancient organisms, ever since the eighteenth century. In recent years, however, the sale of fossils, particularly of dinosaurs and other large vertebrates, has grown into a big business. Rare and important fossils are now being sold to private ownership for millions of dollars. This is an unfortunate development for both scientists and the general public.
The public suffers because fossils that would otherwise be donated to museums where everyone can see them are sold to private collectors who do not allow the public to view their collections. Making it harder for the public to see fossils can lead to a decline in public interest in fossils, which would be a pity.
More importantly, scientists are likely to lose access to some of the most important fossils and thereby miss out on potentially crucial discoveries about extinct life forms. Wealthy fossil buyers with a desire to own the rarest and most important fossils can spend virtually limitless amounts of money to acquire them. Scientists and the museums and universities they work for often cannot compete successfully for fossils against millionaire fossil buyers.
Moreover, commercial fossil collectors often destroy valuable scientific evidence associated with the fossils they unearth. Most commercial fossil collectors are untrained or uninterested in carrying out the careful field work and documentation that reveal the most about animal life in the past. For example, scientists have learned about the biology of nest-building dinosaurs called oviraptors by carefully observing the exact position of oviraptor fossils in the ground and the presence of other fossils in the immediate surroundings. Commercial fossil collectors typically pay no attention to how fossils lie in the ground or to the smaller fossils that may surround bigger ones.
The reading claims that it is a curse if the fossils are in the hands of private collectors for both the public and the scientists because of the less accessibility to these fossil remains, the unpredictability of the authenticity of the fossils if they are treated untrained. However, the professor in the lecture refutes all the arguments and proves that these explanations are faulty.
First, the reading begins with the thought that, if the fossils are in the hands of private ownership, the public will not get a chance to view it as we can see in museums which eventually reduces the interest of the public towards Anthropology. On the other hand, the professor says that this will give the public a greater exposure to the remains of plants and animals. She explains that a massive increase in fossil hunting can finally pave the path to low-level public institutions like public schools and public libraries to buy these remains from the private sellers and display them in an affordable and much accessible way.
Second, the writer suggests that the mining for fossils can decline the possibility to access to the scientists. On the other hand, the lecturer points out that to identify an unearthed form as a fossil, it will definitely pass through the hands of a scientist for the affirmation as a fossil. Moreover, if the fossil destined to go to the hands of a collector, it needs a detailed examination in which the role of a scientist is inevitable.
Last, the reading postulated that the commercial fossil collectors may destroy the valuable pieces of evidence from the unearthed fossil. According to the professor, one flaw of this argument is, whatever damage that the collectors did to the fossils is better than it remains hidden in the earth in the long run. Additionally, she mentions that discovery is better than the harm to the fossil. If more fossils are discovered, more discoveries of fossils can be done and that is more valuable to the public and for the scientists.
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Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, however, if, may, moreover, second, so, then, 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: 8.0 5.04856512141 158% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 7.30242825607 110% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 12.0772626932 108% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 22.412803532 116% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 30.3222958057 145% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 5.01324503311 80% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1665.0 1373.03311258 121% => OK
No of words: 340.0 270.72406181 126% => OK
Chars per words: 4.89705882353 5.08290768461 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.29407602571 4.04702891845 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82452647837 2.5805825403 109% => OK
Unique words: 160.0 145.348785872 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.470588235294 0.540411800872 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 516.6 419.366225166 123% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 3.25607064018 123% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 1.25165562914 240% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 13.0662251656 92% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 21.2450331126 132% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 60.9295472018 49.2860985944 124% => OK
Chars per sentence: 138.75 110.228320801 126% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.3333333333 21.698381199 131% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.58333333333 7.06452816374 93% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 4.33554083885 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.27373068433 47% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.157084981725 0.272083759551 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0612470497479 0.0996497079465 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0323564692872 0.0662205650399 49% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.101723703751 0.162205337803 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.016308659708 0.0443174109184 37% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.8 13.3589403974 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 51.52 53.8541721854 96% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 11.0289183223 118% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.44 12.2367328918 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.6 8.42419426049 102% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 63.6247240618 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 10.7273730684 172% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 10.498013245 126% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 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.