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.
The reading and the lecture are both about the mysterious author of Voynich manuscript. The author of the reading have three suggestions about identity of writer. The lecturer challenges the claims made by the author. He is of the opinion that none of the suggested were authors of manuscript.
To begin with, the author argues that physician and botanist Antony Aschon might have been an author. The article mentions that illustrated plants from manuscript and plants from Aschon's book look alike. This specific argument is challenged by the lecturer. He claims that author of Voynich manuscript included special information in the form of code; however Aschon was an ordinary scientist whose works did not contain any original information. Additionally, he says that similarities between plants from manuscript illustrations and Aschon's book were because scientist took them from well-known resources.
Secondly, the writer suggests that Eduard Kelly, swindler of sixteenth century, could have made the book to get benefit from its sale. In article it is said that he earned money by pretending to be a magician and fooling rich people. The lecturer elaborates on this bringing up the point that secret code in the manuscript was complex, but to get profit from fooling people he would not needed to make it that difficult. He elaborates on this by bringing point that people at that time were easy to fool, so simpler code might have worked well.
Finally, it is stated in the article that Wilfrid M. Voynich might have made a modern fake. Moreover it is stated in the passage that he would sell it for good amount of money. In contrast, the lecturer's position is that it is impossible to fake it because now we can easily date any document and the vellum with ink were dated to be 400 years old. He notes that even if Voynich have used old vellum he could not have found ink 400 years old.
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 164, 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.
...e suggestions about identity of writer. The lecturer challenges the claims made by ...
^^^
Line 5, column 388, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'would' requires the base form of the verb: 'need'
Suggestion: need
...profit from fooling people he would not needed to make it that difficult. He elaborate...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 93, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Moreover,
... Voynich might have made a modern fake. Moreover it is stated in the passage that he wou...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, however, if, look, moreover, second, secondly, so, well, in contrast, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 10.4613686534 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 5.04856512141 158% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 7.30242825607 96% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 12.0772626932 132% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 22.412803532 165% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 43.0 30.3222958057 142% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1581.0 1373.03311258 115% => OK
No of words: 322.0 270.72406181 119% => OK
Chars per words: 4.9099378882 5.08290768461 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.23607819155 4.04702891845 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.55363551774 2.5805825403 99% => OK
Unique words: 169.0 145.348785872 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.524844720497 0.540411800872 97% => OK
syllable_count: 483.3 419.366225166 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 3.25607064018 215% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 13.0662251656 138% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 21.2450331126 80% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 45.6708905859 49.2860985944 93% => OK
Chars per sentence: 87.8333333333 110.228320801 80% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.8888888889 21.698381199 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.38888888889 7.06452816374 76% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 4.19205298013 72% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.27373068433 164% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.143554448467 0.272083759551 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0477017691246 0.0996497079465 48% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0433832313932 0.0662205650399 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0860120862173 0.162205337803 53% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0312316338891 0.0443174109184 70% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.6 13.3589403974 79% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 62.68 53.8541721854 116% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 11.0289183223 79% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.9 12.2367328918 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.35 8.42419426049 99% => OK
difficult_words: 79.0 63.6247240618 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 5.5 10.7273730684 51% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.8 10.498013245 84% => 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: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.5 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.