<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 reading and author are both about Jane Austen. The author of the reading feels that there are three reasons to believe that Jane Austen is the subject in the full-length portrait of a teenager girl owned by a member of the Austen family; however, the lecturer rebuts the claim o of the author. He is of the opinion that Jane Austen is not the subject in the said portrait. The lecturer cast doubt on the main point in the reading by providing three reasons.

To begin with, the author argues that Austin's family clearly recognized it as a portrait of Jane Austen; nevertheless, this argument is challenged by the lecturer. He claims that jane has died back before the said portrait was painted; moreover, people did not know how jane had looked like.

Secondly, the reading states that the face in the portrait clearly resembles the one om Cassandra's sketch, which we know depicts Austen; nonetheless, the lecturer rebuts the claim by mentioning that portrait just resembles the face of Austen; furthermore, the face of Jane Austen matched with many female members of her family. Therefore, the author's claim is not justified.

Finally, the author posits that although the painting is unsigned and undated, there is evidence that the syle links to Ozaias Humphrey, who was active in late 1780, exactly the period when Jane Austen was the age of the girl in the painting; howbeit, the lecturer believes that there is evidence and .i.e. stamp on the backside of the painting which gives the information that such painting was sold by Williams. He started selling the canvas the age of 26 years old and at that time austen was old.

Votes
Average: 8 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 15, column 160, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... Ozaias Humphrey, who was active in late 1780, exactly the period when Jane Auste...
^^
Line 15, column 302, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
...urer believes that there is evidence and .i.e. stamp on the backside of the painti...
^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, furthermore, however, if, look, moreover, nevertheless, nonetheless, second, secondly, so, therefore, to begin with

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

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 10.4613686534 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 0.0 5.04856512141 0% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 7.30242825607 55% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 16.0 12.0772626932 132% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 22.412803532 85% => OK
Preposition: 34.0 30.3222958057 112% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 5.01324503311 80% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1369.0 1373.03311258 100% => OK
No of words: 282.0 270.72406181 104% => OK
Chars per words: 4.85460992908 5.08290768461 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.09790868904 4.04702891845 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.43232427902 2.5805825403 94% => OK
Unique words: 142.0 145.348785872 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.503546099291 0.540411800872 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 407.7 419.366225166 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.55342163355 90% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 3.25607064018 123% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.23620309051 134% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 2.5761589404 39% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 10.0 13.0662251656 77% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 28.0 21.2450331126 132% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 119.9695378 49.2860985944 243% => The lengths of sentences changed so frequently.
Chars per sentence: 136.9 110.228320801 124% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.2 21.698381199 130% => OK
Discourse Markers: 12.9 7.06452816374 183% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 4.19205298013 48% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 4.33554083885 46% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 4.45695364238 90% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.27373068433 94% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.137424484964 0.272083759551 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0618553142918 0.0996497079465 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0414063782317 0.0662205650399 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0903294197873 0.162205337803 56% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0364401153066 0.0443174109184 82% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 13.3589403974 116% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 59.98 53.8541721854 111% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.8 11.0289183223 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.15 12.2367328918 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.72 8.42419426049 104% => OK
difficult_words: 66.0 63.6247240618 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 10.7273730684 84% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 10.498013245 126% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 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.