The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
The speaker indicates that whether a man or a woman can be decided as great is only up to those who live afterwards, instead of those living in the same period. It is true that some of the greatest minds only began to gain fame and recognition after their own death. However, this claim does seem somewhat superficial considering that the speaker seems to have overlooked the field one works in.
Admittedly, to decide whether an artwork is good or not largely depends on the taste of the era, which differentiates over time. For instance, there were artists whose style never became popular during their lifetime, thus making it impossible for their contemporaries to decide their greatness. Take the example of the great post-impressionism artist Van Gogh, though renowned for his genius nowadays, was an impecunious painter in his own time, because he was a downright pioneer then and his time was not ready for the style of his works, let alone judging them. However, artists who are fortunate enough to fit the favor of mainstream can surely be judged by their peers. The realistic style of Da Vinci’s work was prevalent during the Renaissance years, so Da Vinci could well appreciated in his time and gain his deserved fame.
Discussing the speaker’s assertion in the context of art might reveal a character of duality, while this is not always true when it comes to other areas. Since science discoveries can largely change contemporary life, we can safely draw the conclusion that a great scientist can be fairly appreciated by his peers. The Chinese agricultural scientist Longping Yuan devoted most of his life producing hybrid rice, and his success directly solved the urgent food problem in China. Yuan’s work can not only actually be witnessed by large proportion of people, but also bring much benefit to his society, which in combination make him one of the greatest scientist in modern China, during his own time.
The conclusion we draw when discussing scientists is also substantiated for great politicians. The greatest politicians are always those who make decent achievement in their job and fairly change people’s lives for good. Directly affected by the decisions of the leader, the people are the most rightful expert to decide the greatness of their leader. Xiaoping Deng, the designer of the reform and opening-up policy in China, made the country’s economy grow rapidly due to his tenacity to push forward the reform. Deng was then considered one of the greatest leader since he brought great betterment to people’s life condition. Nevertheless, there are leaders failing to accomplish needs of their people, and thus be characterized as incompetent by their contemporaries, namely the French emperor Louis XVI.
To sum, though it seems sometime a great person only acquire recognition after his or her death, it is unreasonable to draw the conclusion that greatness cannot be decided by one’s contemporaries. The statement of the speaker is partly true given the fate of some artists, but might meet with hinders when considering area like science or political.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, however, if, look, nevertheless, so, then, thus, well, while, for instance, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.5258426966 118% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.4196629213 81% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 14.8657303371 87% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 11.3162921348 124% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 33.0505617978 133% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 65.0 58.6224719101 111% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 12.9106741573 101% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2630.0 2235.4752809 118% => OK
No of words: 509.0 442.535393258 115% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16699410609 5.05705443957 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.74984508646 4.55969084622 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9268020817 2.79657885939 105% => OK
Unique words: 275.0 215.323595506 128% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.540275049116 0.4932671777 110% => OK
syllable_count: 807.3 704.065955056 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59117977528 101% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 6.24550561798 64% => OK
Article: 8.0 4.99550561798 160% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 3.10617977528 161% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.77640449438 225% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.38483146067 114% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 20.2370786517 99% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 23.0359550562 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.7866093222 60.3974514979 68% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.5 118.986275619 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.45 23.4991977007 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.35 5.21951772744 102% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 7.80617977528 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 10.2758426966 136% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 5.13820224719 97% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.83258426966 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.200223412807 0.243740707755 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0655771916706 0.0831039109588 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0511475418307 0.0758088955206 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.120220489456 0.150359130593 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0248629121593 0.0667264976115 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: 15.6 14.1392134831 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.8420337079 94% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.1743820225 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.0 12.1639044944 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.82 8.38706741573 105% => OK
difficult_words: 127.0 100.480337079 126% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 11.8971910112 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.2143820225 107% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.7820224719 110% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6
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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.