Category: Distant Reading
-
Distant reading or missed-it reading?
The concept of distant reading is seen as the “improper way” to read a text, according to many scholars of literature. Essentially, distant ready is a way to encompass and learn from many texts without closely reading them. Of course there is the practical reason for distant reading; it takes considerably less time and can…
-
On Distant Reading – Blog Post # 2
In the Powell diaries, it is important to acknowledge historical perspective and context in order to fully grasp the situation. In this case, the person describing the event was often involved in it. For example, on January 10, the author describes how they, “Visited Shikellame, being Snoe Weather Could not well go further, invited him…
-
Distant Reading: Understanding and Comprehending
Distant reading is a tool that is becoming more popular, as well as more fascinating and more advanced. As Edward Whitley says, “…the virtue of information visualization is that it can make complex data sets more accessible than they might otherwise be…” (188). Distant readings allow us to draw comparisons between different words and events…
-
Distant Reading Can Give the Reader an Overview of the Subject Matter
Distant reading is not reading from far away, but rather reading the themes of a work. The difference between reading an article and getting the distant reading of an article is similar to looking through a microscope versus a telescope. A microscope gets the details and exact information of a document, while a telescope gives…
-
The Benefits of Distant Reading
Distant Reading is a process where digital documents are broken down and used to make visual images and graphs of patterns of the text that are found in these documents. According to Whitley with the use of digital technology scholars have been able to “search for patterns and trace broad outlines, in a single text…
-
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.…
-
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.…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…