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.
Both the reading passage and the lecture discuss the origin of the Voynich manuscript acquired by a bookseller, Wilfrid M. Voynich, in 1912. Although the reading passage proposes three theories that seem convincing about the creation of the manuscript, the speaker in the lecture casts doubt on them for the following reasons.
To begin with, the reading passage suggests that the manuscript might be created by Anthony Ascham, whose book had similar illustration to those on the Voynich manuscript. However, the speaker contends that there are certain features on the Voynich manuscript being not fit with Anthony Ascham's work, making it unlikely for this physician to be the author of the manuscript.
Secondly, the reading states that some other theories consider the manuscript to be fake and texts on it do not have actual meaning. According to these theories, it is possible that the manuscript was made up by Edward Kelley, a person who constantly created unreal magical books and sold them to the rich. Nevertheless, the lecturer points out that the contents in the manuscript are extremely complex, while the people in the sixteenth century were not that brilliant. Therefore, it did not make sense for Kelley to put such an effort into creating the complicated book to deceive people.
Last but not least, according to the reading passage, the manuscript might be created by the manuscript's seller, Wilfrid M. Voynich, himself. Nonetheless, the speaker challenges this idea by noting that the paper and ink of the manuscript are too old for Wilfrid M. Voynich to obtain. Given this, the manuscript had already been created before Wilfrid M. Voynich received it.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 424, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e extremely complex, while the people in the sixteenth century were not that bril...
^^
Line 7, column 94, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'manuscripts'' or 'manuscript's'?
Suggestion: manuscripts'; manuscript's
... the manuscript might be created by the manuscripts seller, Wilfrid M. Voynich, himself. No...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, however, nevertheless, nonetheless, second, secondly, so, therefore, while, to begin with
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 : 5.0 7.30242825607 68% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 12.0772626932 83% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 22.412803532 89% => OK
Preposition: 34.0 30.3222958057 112% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 5.01324503311 40% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1409.0 1373.03311258 103% => OK
No of words: 272.0 270.72406181 100% => OK
Chars per words: 5.18014705882 5.08290768461 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.06108636974 4.04702891845 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67475047748 2.5805825403 104% => OK
Unique words: 151.0 145.348785872 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.555147058824 0.540411800872 103% => OK
syllable_count: 411.3 419.366225166 98% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 3.25607064018 61% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 1.25165562914 160% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 21.2450331126 89% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.9183506949 49.2860985944 130% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.642857143 110.228320801 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.4285714286 21.698381199 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.71428571429 7.06452816374 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 4.19205298013 48% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => 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: 0.298747798129 0.272083759551 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.12684990973 0.0996497079465 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0602542583202 0.0662205650399 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.193716805737 0.162205337803 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.057131993385 0.0443174109184 129% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 13.3589403974 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 53.8541721854 113% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 11.0289183223 86% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.76 12.2367328918 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.53 8.42419426049 101% => OK
difficult_words: 68.0 63.6247240618 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 10.7273730684 98% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 10.498013245 91% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.2008830022 116% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 81.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.5 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.