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. One theory is that the manuscript is a genuine work on some scientific or magical subject composed in a complex secret code. Anthony Ascham, a sixteenth-century physician and botanist, has been identified as a possible author,since many plant illustrations in the Voynich manuscript are quite similar to those in Ascham's book on medicinal plants, A Little Herbal, published in 1550. According to some other theories, the manuscript is really a fake and its text has no real meaning. For example , it has been proposed the manuscript was created by Edward Kelley, a sixteenth century personality who extracted money from nobles across Europe by pretending to have magical powers. Kelley may have created the manuscript as a fake magical book to sell to a wealthy noble. He used a made-up alphabet in a completely random order. It looks like a book of magical secrets, but there is no meaningful underlying text. Another theory is that the manuscript is actually a modern fake created by Wilfrid M. Voynich himself. As an antique book dealer,Voynich certainly had the knowledge of what old manuscripts should look like and could have created a fake one. Perhaps Voynich's plan was to sell the fake as a mysterious old book if he received an attractive offer.
The reading passage provides three possible theories about the origin of the “Voynish manuscript”. However, the lecture completely refutes the theories for the following reasons.
Firstly, the author claims that the book belongs to a botanist named “Anthony Ascham”. This scientist wrote a book named “ A little herb” with a style that resembles the Voynish manuscript. The lecturer disagrees with this theory and mentions that Anthony Ascham didn’t write any original ideas. She goes on and states that his book “a little herb” contains known information from common sources. Thus, his book is not genuine and doesn’t resemble the voynish maniscrupt. Accordingly, T He doubts that this botanist is the one who wrote the book.
Secondly, the writer assumes that the book was written by a person who used to fool the nobles and sell them fake antiques to extract their money. Thus, he wrote this book in a complex code so people would think it had magical power. However, the professor debates this theory and states that people at this time were easily fooled. Therefore, that person who used to fool nobles for money didn’t have to do much effort to make a complex book like Voynish manuscript.
Lastly, the author states that it was a fake creation of an antique dealer. This antique dealer wanted to write something that looks old and complex so he can get an attractive offer in return. On the other hand, the professor argues this theory and illustrates the fact that it was written 400 years ago. She goes on and highlights that even if the antique dealer can get old pages, he can’t get old ink that dates back to 400 years ago.
Thus, the professor believes that the claims mentioned in the three theories are not well-founded.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, look, second, secondly, so, therefore, thus, well, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 7.0 10.4613686534 67% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 5.04856512141 79% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 7.30242825607 110% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 12.0772626932 141% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 22.412803532 156% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 23.0 30.3222958057 76% => 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: 1467.0 1373.03311258 107% => OK
No of words: 297.0 270.72406181 110% => OK
Chars per words: 4.93939393939 5.08290768461 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.15134772569 4.04702891845 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.47392047383 2.5805825403 96% => OK
Unique words: 158.0 145.348785872 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.531986531987 0.540411800872 98% => OK
syllable_count: 427.5 419.366225166 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.55342163355 90% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 3.25607064018 246% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => 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: 17.0 13.0662251656 130% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 21.2450331126 80% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 21.1653565606 49.2860985944 43% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 86.2941176471 110.228320801 78% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.4705882353 21.698381199 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.94117647059 7.06452816374 98% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 4.33554083885 46% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.27373068433 234% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.140438425322 0.272083759551 52% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.049192464113 0.0996497079465 49% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0399515430474 0.0662205650399 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0678129273823 0.162205337803 42% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0444668959097 0.0443174109184 100% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.6 13.3589403974 79% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 71.14 53.8541721854 132% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 7.6 11.0289183223 69% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.08 12.2367328918 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.36 8.42419426049 99% => OK
difficult_words: 73.0 63.6247240618 115% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 10.7273730684 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 10.498013245 84% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => 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.