A recent study reveals that people, especially young people, are reading far less literature—novels, plays, and poems—than they used to. This is troubling because the trend has unfortunate effects for the reading public, for culture in general, and for the future of literature itself.
While there has been a decline in book reading generally, the decline has been especially sharp for literature. This is unfortunate because nothing else provides the intellectual stimulation that literature does. Literature encourages us to exercise our imaginations, empathize with others, and expand our understanding of language. So by reading less literature, the reading public is missing out on important benefits.
Unfortunately, missing out on the benefits of literature is not the only problem. What are people reading instead? Consider the prevalence of self-help books on lists of best sellers. These are usually superficial, poorly written, and intellectually undemanding. Additionally, instead of sitting down with a challenging novel, many persons are now more likely to turn on the television, watch a music video, or read a Web page. Clearly, diverting time previously spent in reading literature to trivial forms of entertainment has lowered the level of culture in general.
The trend of reading less literature is all the more regrettable because it is taking place during a period when good literature is being written. There are many talented writers today, but they lack an audience. This fact is bound to lead publishers to invest less in literature and so support fewer serious writers. Thus, the writing as well as the reading of literature is likely to decline because of the poor standards of today's readers.
Narrator:
Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Professor:
It is often said that people are reading less literature today than they used to. What should we make of this?
Well, first, a book doesn’t have to be literature to be intellectually stimulating. Science writing, history, political analysis, and so forth aren’t literature, perhaps, but they’re often of high quality. And these kinds of books can be just as creative and well-written as a novel or a play—they can stimulate the imagination. So don’t assume that someone who isn’t reading literature isn’t reading a good book.
But let’s say that people aren’t just spending less time with literature, they’re also spending less time with books in general. Does that mean that the culture is in decline? No. There’s plenty of culturally valuable material that isn’t written: music and movies, for example. Are people wasting their time when they listen to a brilliant song or watch a good movie? Do these non-literary activities lower cultural standards? Of course not. Culture has changed. In today’s culture there are many forms of expression available other than novels and poems, and some of these creative forms speak more directly to contemporary concerns than literature does.
Finally, it’s probably true that there’s less support for literature today than in earlier generations. But don’t be too quick to blame the readers. Sometimes it’s the author’s fault. Let’s be honest: a lot of modern literature is intended to be difficult to understand. There’s not much reason to suppose that earlier generations of readers would have read a lot of today’s literature either.
Both author and lecturer deal with the topic of literature and their viewpoint among contemporary readers. Whilst, The author stated in the article that declining rate of literature readers is more troublesome for three specific reasons. The lecturer opposes each of the claims made by the author. In his opinion, the reader has loosened interest in literature due to changes in the culture of the art form.
First of all, writer claimed that literature is only to provide intellectual stimulation for a layman. Furthermore author said that literature stimulates a person mind to imagination, empathy and better insighting of language. In contrast, the lecturer argues that literature books are not only to teach persons about intellectual thoughts. He maintains that there are other books such as science, math etc which requires intelectual mind; consequently, can stimulate intellectual in people.
Second of all, The author mentioned that books which are considered to be best are superficial, poorly written and intellectually poor. In top of that, he adds that people are watching some poor entertainments on television rather to read the literature. However, the lecturer calls this argument into question by saying that watching movies, listening music do not hampers our culture and mental shrewdness. further he remarks that culture of literature reading has been changed to other forms which is not bad at all.
Finally, The author asserts that readers are reading less, so, talented writers are being dearth in audience. He further mentioned that such decline had lead to ramifications, leading to less investment in literature. As opposed, the lecturer holds that it's not the problem of the reader.As nowadays the literature are difficult to comprehend and interpret, and claimed that its the problem of writers who had lead to less ecstacy among people to literature.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 104, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Furthermore,
... intellectual stimulation for a layman. Furthermore author said that literature stimulates ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 468, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ectual mind; consequently, can stimulate intellectual in people. Second of all...
^^
Line 5, column 367, Rule ID: DONT_NEEDS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'hamper'?
Suggestion: hamper
...watching movies, listening music do not hampers our culture and mental shrewdness. furt...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 410, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Further
...pers our culture and mental shrewdness. further he remarks that culture of literature r...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 289, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: As
... that its not the problem of the reader.As nowadays the literature are difficult t...
^^
Line 7, column 376, Rule ID: IT_IS[17]
Message: Did you mean 'it's' (='it is') instead of 'its' (possessive pronoun)?
Suggestion: it's; it is
...prehend and interpret, and claimed that its the problem of writers who had lead to ...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
consequently, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, second, so, in contrast, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 10.4613686534 134% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 1.0 5.04856512141 20% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 7.30242825607 96% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 12.0772626932 149% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 22.412803532 107% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 30.3222958057 135% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 5.01324503311 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1595.0 1373.03311258 116% => OK
No of words: 296.0 270.72406181 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.38851351351 5.08290768461 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.14784890444 4.04702891845 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.91266965855 2.5805825403 113% => OK
Unique words: 168.0 145.348785872 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.567567567568 0.540411800872 105% => OK
syllable_count: 490.5 419.366225166 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.55342163355 109% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 3.25607064018 92% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 1.25165562914 160% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 13.0662251656 115% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 21.2450331126 89% => OK
Sentence length SD: 37.6893736866 49.2860985944 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.333333333 110.228320801 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.7333333333 21.698381199 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.8 7.06452816374 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 4.19205298013 143% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 4.33554083885 231% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 4.45695364238 45% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.27373068433 70% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.141667881107 0.272083759551 52% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0473351019689 0.0996497079465 48% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0367020859243 0.0662205650399 55% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0811767747092 0.162205337803 50% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0144851282043 0.0443174109184 33% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 13.3589403974 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 53.8541721854 81% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 11.0289183223 108% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.98 12.2367328918 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.69 8.42419426049 103% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 63.6247240618 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 10.7273730684 84% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 10.498013245 91% => 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.