<Reading>Jane Austen (1775-1817) is one of the most famous of all English novelists, and today her novels are more popular than ever, with several recently adapted as Hollywood movies. But we do not have many records of what she looked like. For a l

Essay topics:

<Reading>

Jane Austen (1775-1817) is one of the most famous of all English novelists, and today her novels are more popular than ever, with several recently adapted as Hollywood movies. But we do not have many records of what she looked like. For a long time, the only accepted image of Austen was an amateur sketch of an adult Austen made by her sister Cassandra. However recently a professionally painted, full-length portrait of a teenage girl owned by a member of the Austen family has come up for sale. Although the professional painting is not titled Jane Austen, there are good reasons to believe she is the subject.

First, in 1882, several decades after Austen's death, Austen's family gave permission to use the portrait as an illustration in an edition of her letters. Austen's family clearly recognized it as a portrait of the author. So, for over a century now, the Austen family itself has endorsed the claim that the girl in the portrait is Jane Austen.

Second, the face in the portrait clearly resembles the one in Cassandra's sketch, which we know depicts Austen. Though somewhat amateurish, the sketch communicates definite details about Austen's face. Even though the Cassandra sketch is of an adult Jane Austen, the features are still similar to those of the teenage girl in the painting. The eyebrows, nose, mouth, and overall shape of the face are very much like those in the full-length portrait.

Third, although the painting is unsigned and undated, there is evidence that it was painted when Austen was a teenager. The style links it to Ozias Humphrey, a society portrait painter who was the kind of professional the wealthy Austen family would hire. Humphrey was active in the late 1780s and early 1790s, exactly the period when Jane Austen was the age of the girl in the painting.

<Listening>

Professor:

The evidence linking this portrait to Jane Austen is not at all convincing. Sure, the painting has long been somewhat loosely connected to Austen's extended family and their descendents, but this hardly proves it's a portrait of Jane Austen as a teenager. The reading's arguments that the portrait is of Austen are questionable at best.

First, when the portrait was authorized for use in the 1882 publication of her letters, Jane Austen had been dead for almost 70 years. So the family members who asserted that the painting was Jane had never actually seen her themselves. They couldn't have known for certain if the portrait was of Austen or not.

Second, the portrait could very well be that of a relative of Austen's, a fact that would explain the resemblance between its subject and that of Cassandra's sketch. The extended Austen family was very large and many of Jane Austen's female cousins were teenagers in the relevant period or had children who were teenagers. And some of these teenage girls could have resembled Jane Austen. In fact, many experts believe that the true subject of the portrait was one of those relatives, Marianne Kempian, who was a distant niece of Austen's. Third, the painting has been attributed to Humphrey only because of the style. But other evidence points to a later date. A stamp on the back of the picture indicates that the blank canvas, you know the actual piece of cloth on which the picture was painted, was sold by a man named William Legg. Record showed that William Legg did not sell canvases in London when Jane Austen was a teenager. He only started selling canvases when she was 27 years old. So it looks like the canvas was used for the painting at a time when Austen was clearly older than the girl in the portrait.

The passage provided in the lecture suggest that a painting mentioned in the passage is a potrait of jane austen, a famous English novelist. it provides several justifications for this claim. But the professor in the lecture strongly diagrees with this claim, and addresses each point made in the passage to show their weakness or invalidity. he claims that the the arguments provided in the passage are not convincing.

First, he addresses the fact that family endorsment of the claim that the portrait is of jane austen. Here the lecturer points out that this so called family or relatives have never seen jane austen, given that she has died seventy years ago, and could not have possibly the ability to correctly determine whether the portrait is of jane or not.

Second, the article suggest that the portrait in question shows close resemblance to a sketch made by the sister of jane. In contrast to this the lecturer argues that this might very well be a relative of jane, which is highly possible given the extended family that jane was in. he further strengthens his argument by syaing that it is now actually said to be of her relative, Mary Anne.

Finally, the lecturer rebut the argument of the article which suggest that the portrait was made in the same time period when jane was a teen ager. he does so by pointing out that the canvas of the painting reveal it's seller, who did not start selling canvases in London until a time when jane was in her twenities. In this manner he bolster his claim that the portrait is not of jane austen.

Thus, it is clear that the professor in his lectuerer posits several arguments that counter the suggestions provided by the passage. he strongly oppose the main claim of the passage, and provide several evidences to support his stand.

Votes
Average: 7.3 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 142, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: It
...jane austen, a famous English novelist. it provides several justifications for thi...
^^
Line 1, column 344, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: He
...e to show their weakness or invalidity. he claims that the the arguments provided ...
^^
Line 1, column 359, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
... weakness or invalidity. he claims that the the arguments provided in the passage are n...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 359, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
... weakness or invalidity. he claims that the the arguments provided in the passage are n...
^^^^^^^
Line 19, column 149, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: He
... time period when jane was a teen ager. he does so by pointing out that the canvas...
^^
Line 19, column 335, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[1]
Message: The pronoun 'he' must be used with a third-person verb: 'bolsters'.
Suggestion: bolsters
...was in her twenities. In this manner he bolster his claim that the portrait is not of j...
^^^^^^^
Line 25, column 134, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: He
...he suggestions provided by the passage. he strongly oppose the main claim of the p...
^^
Line 25, column 146, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[3]
Message: The pronoun 'he' must be used with a third-person verb: 'opposes'.
Suggestion: opposes
...ns provided by the passage. he strongly oppose the main claim of the passage, and prov...
^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, if, second, so, then, thus, well, in contrast, in contrast to

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 10.4613686534 134% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 2.0 5.04856512141 40% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 7.30242825607 96% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 12.0772626932 166% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 22.412803532 174% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 38.0 30.3222958057 125% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1507.0 1373.03311258 110% => OK
No of words: 312.0 270.72406181 115% => OK
Chars per words: 4.83012820513 5.08290768461 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.20279927342 4.04702891845 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.44399590014 2.5805825403 95% => OK
Unique words: 153.0 145.348785872 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.490384615385 0.540411800872 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 459.9 419.366225166 110% => 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: 4.0 8.23620309051 49% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.51434878587 264% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 21.2450331126 104% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.2548949423 49.2860985944 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.642857143 110.228320801 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.2857142857 21.698381199 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.57142857143 7.06452816374 93% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 4.19205298013 191% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 4.33554083885 46% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.27373068433 140% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.105106416848 0.272083759551 39% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0427430535997 0.0996497079465 43% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0288372901133 0.0662205650399 44% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0625235102535 0.162205337803 39% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0251275498094 0.0443174109184 57% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 13.3589403974 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 53.8541721854 107% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 11.0289183223 97% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.03 12.2367328918 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.07 8.42419426049 96% => OK
difficult_words: 66.0 63.6247240618 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 10.7273730684 75% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 10.498013245 103% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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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.