marco polo

Essay topics:

marco polo

The reading passage and the lecture have conflicting opinions about whether or not Marco polo traveled to China, where he claimed he spent seventeen years and later wrote about his journey to the far east. The article strongly postulates that the story has always been the target of skepticism and controversy, and perhaps he never made it to China. However, the speaker in the lecture adamantly delineates that the ideas mentioned in the article are based on misunderstanding and misinterpretation.

To begin with, the author assumes that the original accounts for the trip, which were written in Italian, Latin and old French, tell different details for the story and this casts doubt on the legitimacy of these events. Nevertheless, the lecturer indicates that after returning from his journey, Marco polo was a prisoner of war and a fellow prisoner wrote the first account about his venture to china in old French, but Marco polo later recorded his own version in Italian, which was translated to Latin since it was the most popular language then. Unfortunately, the original Italian copy was lost and the Latin had to be retranslated to Italian. As a result, some details were lost or changed in the process resulting in discrepancies between the three depositions.

Secondly, the writer contends that Marco polo failed to describe obvious facts about China around this time, such as binding women's feet, tea drinking and the Great Wall. The lecturer, on the other hand, offsets this argument by maintaining that Marco polo lived in North china most of the time where they did not drink tea. Moreover, the lecturer further elaborates that he entered China from the west side where the Great Wall would not be visible.

Lastly, the excerpt posits that no evidence for the story in the recorded chinese history was found. Besides, Marco polo did not speak, read or write chinese. The lecturer challenges this argument by holding that Marco polo did not need to learn chinese due to the availability of persian translators provided by the king. Also, accoridng to the lecture, his story might have been appeared in the chinese books under a different chinese name as people's name in chinese is unique and different from their name in their own language. Plus, he could have been not important enough to be merited with the honor of being mentioned in the chinese old waritings.

Votes
Average: 8 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 69, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...lecture have conflicting opinions about whether or not Marco polo traveled to China, where he ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 657, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...mentioned in the chinese old waritings.
^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, first, however, if, lastly, moreover, nevertheless, second, secondly, so, then, such as, as a result, to begin with, on the other hand

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

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 10.4613686534 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 5.04856512141 79% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 7.30242825607 205% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 14.0 12.0772626932 116% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 22.412803532 129% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 52.0 30.3222958057 171% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 5.01324503311 80% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2000.0 1373.03311258 146% => OK
No of words: 398.0 270.72406181 147% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.02512562814 5.08290768461 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.46653527281 4.04702891845 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60300173645 2.5805825403 101% => OK
Unique words: 211.0 145.348785872 145% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.530150753769 0.540411800872 98% => OK
syllable_count: 623.7 419.366225166 149% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 3.25607064018 61% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.23620309051 134% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 13.0662251656 115% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 21.2450331126 122% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 62.8700953466 49.2860985944 128% => OK
Chars per sentence: 133.333333333 110.228320801 121% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.5333333333 21.698381199 122% => OK
Discourse Markers: 10.2666666667 7.06452816374 145% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 4.19205298013 48% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 4.33554083885 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 4.45695364238 179% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.27373068433 47% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.281156016576 0.272083759551 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.102910033897 0.0996497079465 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.131733930919 0.0662205650399 199% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.174255483092 0.162205337803 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0369946599234 0.0443174109184 83% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 13.3589403974 116% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 53.8541721854 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 11.0289183223 121% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.19 12.2367328918 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.7 8.42419426049 103% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 63.6247240618 149% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 10.7273730684 135% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 10.498013245 118% => 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.