A recent study reveals that people especially young people are reading far less literature—novels, plays, and poems—than they used to. This is troubling because the trend has unfortunate effects for the reading public, for culture in general, and for the future of literature itself.
While there has been a decline in book reading generally, the decline has been especially sharp for literature. This is unfortunate because nothing else provides the intellectual stimulation that literature does. Literature encourages us to exercise our imaginations, empathize with others, and expand our understanding of language. So by reading less literature, the reading public is missing out on important benefits.
Unfortunately, missing out on the benefits of literature is not the only problem. What are people reading instead? Consider the prevalence of self-help books on lists of best sellers. These are usually superficial poorly written, and intellectually undemanding. Additionally, instead of sitting down with a challenging novel, many persons are now more likely to turn on the television, watch a music video, or read a Web page. Clearly, diverting time previously spent in reading literature to trivial forms of entertainment has lowered the level of culture in general.
The trend of reading less literature is all the more regrettable because it is taking place during a period when good literature is being written. There are many talented writers today, but they lack an audience. This fact is bound to lead publishers to invest less in literature and so support fewer serious writers. Thus, the writing as well as the reading of literature is likely to decline because of the poor standards of today's readers.
The writing introduces the topic of whether readers today are reading less novels and its impact. The writing mentions many disadvantages of the declining trend of reading novels which impacts many aspects such as overall culture and future of literature. The lecturer disagrees. She says that the author's argument does not hold water and attacks each of the claims made in the writing.
First, the author says that by reading less literature, the public is ,at a not gaining many important benefits that novels are suppose to provide such as intellectual simulation and running imagination which expands one's understanding. The professor on the other hand believes that a book does not have to be literature to be creative and intellectually stimulating. She goes on to say that there are many books other than literature that offer the same benefits as reading literature.
According to the author, viewers nowadays prefer watching television or a music video instead of reading a novel. She added that even if people read any books nowadays, they are generally books that are poorly written and intellectually undemanding; leading to lowering the level of culture in general. However, the speaker believes that the culture has changed and there are plenty of culturally valuable means of books other than novels today. She explains it through the argument that culture has many forms and not one.
Lastly, the writer believes that there are many talented writers today, but due to the decreasing audience, publishers are hesitating to invest in them. Hence, sue to the lowered support, such writers and reading literature are on a decline. The professor rebuts this argument by saying that we cannot blame the readers for this decline because writers today are creating the reading, intended more difficult to understand; consequently readers prefer easier texts. She added that due to this writers themselves are at fault for decreased audience.
- Manned space flight is costly and dangerous Moreover the recent success of a series of unmanned space probes and satellites has demonstrated that a great deal of useful information can be gathered without the costs and risks associated with sending men an 58
- A person should never make an important decision alone 54
- In twenty years there will be less cars in use than there are today 90
- Communal online encyclopedias represent one of the latest resources to be found on the Internet They are in many respects like traditional printed encyclopedias collections of articles on various subjects What is specific to these online encyclopedias how 95
- The city of Winston has two large department stores Namen and Roscoe Namen is known for its high end designer fashions while Roscoe is known for more affordable fashion options Both Namen and Roscoe are each considering opening another store in the growin 68
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 71, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun novels is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...ic of whether readers today are reading less novels and its impact. The writing ment...
^^^^
Line 1, column 257, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...erall culture and future of literature. The lecturer disagrees. She says that the a...
^^^
Line 1, column 299, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...e lecturer disagrees. She says that the authors argument does not hold water and attack...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 70, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...y reading less literature, the public is ,at a not gaining many important benefits...
^^
Line 3, column 129, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'supposed'.
Suggestion: supposed
...many important benefits that novels are suppose to provide such as intellectual simulat...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 218, Rule ID: ONES[1]
Message: Did you mean 'one's'?
Suggestion: one's
...n and running imagination which expands ones understanding. The professor on the oth...
^^^^
Line 7, column 489, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...fer easier texts. She added that due to this writers themselves are at fault for dec...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, consequently, first, hence, however, if, lastly, so, in general, such as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 10.4613686534 134% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 1.0 5.04856512141 20% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 7.30242825607 151% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 12.0772626932 124% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 22.412803532 120% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 31.0 30.3222958057 102% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 5.01324503311 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1648.0 1373.03311258 120% => OK
No of words: 313.0 270.72406181 116% => OK
Chars per words: 5.26517571885 5.08290768461 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.20616286096 4.04702891845 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71299625538 2.5805825403 105% => OK
Unique words: 169.0 145.348785872 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.539936102236 0.540411800872 100% => OK
syllable_count: 517.5 419.366225166 123% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.55342163355 109% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 3.25607064018 184% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 13.0662251656 115% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 21.2450331126 94% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.7773675892 49.2860985944 111% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.866666667 110.228320801 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.8666666667 21.698381199 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.4 7.06452816374 91% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 4.19205298013 167% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 4.33554083885 185% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.27373068433 23% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.230688478544 0.272083759551 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0712921518647 0.0996497079465 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0471535737595 0.0662205650399 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.129928486322 0.162205337803 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.024904065312 0.0443174109184 56% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 13.3589403974 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 53.8541721854 79% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 11.0289183223 112% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.29 12.2367328918 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.87 8.42419426049 105% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 63.6247240618 132% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 10.7273730684 107% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 10.498013245 95% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 85.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 25.5 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.