Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Is Powell an eligible Moravian? On Distant Reading
Distant Reading is basically a “machine reading”. Using effective algorithms, we can “read” documents in a smart and statistical way. The easiest two methods of distant reading are 1. finding the most frequent words 2. finding the connections between most frequent used words. By doing those research processes, we can “read” documents from different angles.…
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Big and Small Words
The point of distant reading is to give the reader a summary of the chosen text using bigger and smaller sized words to demonstrate the frequency of those words. By looking at the words on display, the reader can get a basic idea of what the text is about and what the keys are when reading.…
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Distant Reading and its Significance
While at first it may be difficult to grasp the concept of distant reading, as it can appear confusing or meaningless, it is a very useful tool for analyzing works of literature from a far. Distant reading can help to evaluate the trend of individual words, as seen on Ngram, or compare readings by determining…
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On Distant Reading
Since people are usually more susceptible to visualized texts than to sequential texts, distance reading is a useful approach to answer some basic questions about the texts. It can be used to “search for patterns and to trace broad outlines” and thus provides a faster approach to the general ideas of the texts than close…
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How to Read Distantly
Instructions: Go to the Voyant Tools home page: http://voyant-tools.org/ Upload the file of the Powell diary draft compilation using the “Upload” button, then “Reveal” (the .txt files are available for download on the “Sources and Resources” page). You should now see a dashboard with several panels. In the top left panel is a “Cirrus” or word…
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On Distant Reading
In class last week we discussed the differences between distant reading and close reading and how they can complement each other as we analyze texts. Clearly the mass digitization of libraries and archives has given the reader access to previously under accessed resources. With tools such as Voyant a reader can now perform new ways…
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Transcription Reflection 1
The transcription process was totally new to me and I had plenty of difficulty initially. At first, it seemed as though every other word was something I had never seen before in the English language, or the handwriting was nearly illegible. However, after a few sentences I started to get a hang of it not…
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How Far The English Language Has Come
The transcription process was a relatively smooth process once I continued to see the same words used over and over again. It was very tedious and difficult to make sense of the sentences, but as the man from the Bethlehem Moravian Archives said, one should focus on each word individually in order to transcribe most…
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Transcribing: The Struggle and the Success
Transcribing a document is a very tedious, yet rewarding experience. It is amazing that correlation between how people wrote and talked then, to how they do now. Yes, there are many grammatical differences, but the fact that we can still read and for the most part understand these documents, is phenomenal. As great as it is,…
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Powell Diary: Transcription Reflection
While transcribing old archives is very interesting and useful, it is a tedious process that at some points can be frustrating. However with the right introduction and knowledge of what exactly is being transcribed, the process seemingly swift. The transcription process of archives such as the Powell Diary require a knowledge base of certain characters…
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