Toward the end of his life, the Chevalier de
Seingalt (1725−1798) wrote a long memoir
recounting his life and adventures. The
Chevalier was a somewhat controversial
figure, but since he met many famous people,
including kings and writers, his memoir has
become a valuable historical source about
European society in the eighteenth century.
However, some critics have raised doubts
about the accuracy of the memoir. They claim
that the Chevalier distorted or invented many
events in the memoir to make his life seem
more exciting and glamorous than it really
was.
198
For example, in his memoir the Chevalier
claims that while living in Switzerland, he
was very wealthy, and it is known that
he spent a great deal of money there on
parties and gambling. However, evidence
has recently surfaced that the Chevalier
borrowed considerable sums of money from a
Swiss merchant. Critics thus argue that if the
Chevalier had really been very rich, he would
not have needed to borrow money.
Critics are also skeptical about the accuracy of
the conversations that the Chevalier records
in the memoir between himself and the
famous writer Voltaire. No one doubts that
the Chevalier and Voltaire met and conversed.
However, critics complain that the memoir
cannot possibly capture these conversations
199
accurately, because it was written many years
after the conversations occurred. Critics point
out that it is impossible to remember exact
phrases from extended conversations held
many years earlier.
Critics have also questioned the memoir’s
account of the Chevalier’s escape from a
notorious prison in Venice, Italy. He claims to
have escaped the Venetian prison by using a
piece of metal to make a hole in the ceiling
and climbing through the roof. Critics claim
that while such a daring escape makes for
enjoyable reading, it is more likely that the
Chevalier’s jailers were bribed to free him.
They point out that the Chevalier had a
number of politically well-connected friends in
Venice who could have offered a bribe.
Both the reading and the lecture discuss the reliability and the accuracy of the memoir of Chevalier de Seingalt written by himself toward the end of his life. However, the former casts doubt on the credibility on the adventures mentioned in the memoir while the latter challenges that the memoir is reliable for the following three reasons.
First of all, the author of the passage cast a doubt on wealth of chevalier. By mentioning a recently surfaced evidence that chevalier lended considerable sums of money from swiss merchants. In contrast, the professor from the lecture states that most of the assets of chevalier possesed where buildings or lands and it took considerable amount of time to sell these assets. As it took time to sell these assets he first took the money and gave the assets to the swiss merchant.
Second of all, a paragraph from the passage casts doubt on the accuracy of the conversations between chevalier and voltaire. Since the memoir was written toward end of his life, it is impossible to remember the exact phrases from their conversations. However, the lecture argues by stating that chevalier used to maintain a book in which he wrote down the conversations that he had with Voltaire and kept that book with him for many years. Further mentioning that Chevalier used to refer to many books such as this for his memor.
Finally, the reading passage questions the escape from prison in venice, by stating that it was due to bribery and not an adventure completely. Nevertheless, the professor, she mentions that there are prisoners in the same exact prison who wield much more power than Chevalier and they could have bribed out of prison if that was possible, so bribing was out of question for an escape. Further stating that the cieling of his palace came to a repair as soon as he escaped from prison which is not a coincidence.
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Comments
Essay evaluations by e-grader
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 441, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Further,
...kept that book with him for many years. Further mentioning that Chevalier used to refer...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 387, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Further,
...bing was out of question for an escape. Further stating that the cieling of his palace ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, however, if, nevertheless, second, so, while, in contrast, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 8.0 10.4613686534 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 1.0 5.04856512141 20% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 7.30242825607 123% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 12.0772626932 124% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 22.412803532 138% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 51.0 30.3222958057 168% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1554.0 1373.03311258 113% => OK
No of words: 321.0 270.72406181 119% => OK
Chars per words: 4.84112149533 5.08290768461 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.23278547379 4.04702891845 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64318055957 2.5805825403 102% => OK
Unique words: 158.0 145.348785872 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.492211838006 0.540411800872 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 476.1 419.366225166 114% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 3.25607064018 61% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.23620309051 85% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 1.25165562914 160% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 13.0662251656 99% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 21.2450331126 113% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.580755792 49.2860985944 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.538461538 110.228320801 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.6923076923 21.698381199 114% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.38461538462 7.06452816374 105% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 4.19205298013 48% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => 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: 0.263441383238 0.272083759551 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0979048055869 0.0996497079465 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0965641791202 0.0662205650399 146% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.167213213977 0.162205337803 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.103912909135 0.0443174109184 234% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 13.3589403974 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 53.8541721854 103% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 11.0289183223 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.09 12.2367328918 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.93 8.42419426049 94% => OK
difficult_words: 63.0 63.6247240618 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 10.498013245 110% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 Out of 30
---------------------
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.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 441, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Further,
...kept that book with him for many years. Further mentioning that Chevalier used to refer...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 387, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Further,
...bing was out of question for an escape. Further stating that the cieling of his palace ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, however, if, nevertheless, second, so, while, in contrast, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 8.0 10.4613686534 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 1.0 5.04856512141 20% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 7.30242825607 123% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 12.0772626932 124% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 22.412803532 138% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 51.0 30.3222958057 168% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1554.0 1373.03311258 113% => OK
No of words: 321.0 270.72406181 119% => OK
Chars per words: 4.84112149533 5.08290768461 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.23278547379 4.04702891845 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64318055957 2.5805825403 102% => OK
Unique words: 158.0 145.348785872 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.492211838006 0.540411800872 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 476.1 419.366225166 114% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 3.25607064018 61% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.23620309051 85% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 1.25165562914 160% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 13.0662251656 99% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 21.2450331126 113% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.580755792 49.2860985944 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.538461538 110.228320801 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.6923076923 21.698381199 114% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.38461538462 7.06452816374 105% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 4.19205298013 48% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => 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: 0.263441383238 0.272083759551 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0979048055869 0.0996497079465 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0965641791202 0.0662205650399 146% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.167213213977 0.162205337803 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.103912909135 0.0443174109184 234% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 13.3589403974 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 53.8541721854 103% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 11.0289183223 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.09 12.2367328918 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.93 8.42419426049 94% => OK
difficult_words: 63.0 63.6247240618 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 10.498013245 110% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 Out of 30
---------------------
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.