Humanities
Title: Who Wrote That: Stylometry Investigations.
Author: Dr. John Sieben
Department: Math Computer Science & Information Systems.
Abstract:
Who wrote Macbeth? Scholars agree that William Shakespeare (WS) is the author of Macbeth, but there is not agreement on the author of the play Thomas Lord Cromwell. In fact, there is near universal agreement that WS is not the author of the play Thomas Lord Cromwell. What evidence is available to help scholars reach such conclusions? “Stylometry” is a collection of techniques that are useful for discovering and matching patterns in samples of prose. What kinds of patterns? Things like the distribution of word length, i.e. three letter words, four letter words, etc. A bit more sophisticated would be the frequency distribution of specific words, i.e. road, castle, blood, shadow, etc.
Stylometry has been done by hand but computer applications make the cleaning of writing samples and the counting of words or word length easier, speedier, and more accurate.
This module will explain some of the techniques of stylometry and will take the user step by step through an example of using the language R and the package STYLOMETRY to investigate the connection of Samual Clemens (Mark Twain) to the Snodgrass letters which were published in 1861 in the New Orleans Daily Crescent.
You will find modules within the following broad categories:
Each module has two components:
1) A student version which describes the project , sources of data, methodology and other information needed to complete the project.
2) An instructor's notes which includes additional information for the instructors.
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