Author: Megan Koczur

Megan Koczur is a sophomore student at Bucknell University. She is a member of the Bucknell Swim and Dive team and intends on majoring in Computer Science and Engineering. She resides in West Chester, Pennsylvania with her her father, mother, sister, Erin, and two black labs, Brandy and Max.

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Blog #2

Blog #2

How does the usage of the most frequently used words change throughout the memoir? Elizabeth Grundy writes a memoir of her life that she dedicates to her son, Br. James Grundy. Elizabeth lost her husband and became a widow, never remarrying before her death. Grundy was a very religious woman and relied heavily on God. Her father passed when she was young leaving her mother to care for the children. Grundy’s husband passed when he was 29 leaving her with a home, a baby, and a soon-to-be newborn. Immediately, Elizabeth had her newborn son join the church, so he would have a “father”, God. Elizabeth and her son, William, kept religion a top priority throughout their lives. Eventually, Elizabeth fell ill with her son, William, at her side. He told her it was time to go, and she passed peacefully at the age of 82.

 

After inputting the text into Voyant, it was determined that there are 4,888 words with 1,222 unique word forms. Her memoir has a vocabulary density of 0.25, ¼ of her word choices are unique. She also averages 28.1 words per sentence which seems to be high for a typical paper. Voyant provides researchers with the five most frequently used words in the corpus. After analyzing Elizabeth Grundy’s memoir, I am not surprised to see that the five most frequently used words are: Savior, time, son, God, and Jesus. The majority of the memoir is written about her life with her son and the way in which they incorporate religion into their lives. There are Grundy’s two most important things in her life, religion and her beloved son. Time can also relate to the time Elizabeth has left on Earth and the time until she reaches her final destination, heaven.

 

After analyzing the four sections we broke Grundy’s memoir up into, it has been determined that she speaks heavily of her son and the Savior throughout the entire writing. The keywords listed are: God, Brethren, life, Jesus, and Savior. God mainly has the collocate, people, and a few times has Savior. Brethren’s collocate is church while life’s is departed. This exemplifies Elizabeth Grundy speaking of passing over. Jesus’ collocates range greatly from the word mercy to the word end. The same types of words are used throughout the text. Everything seems to fall back on her son or religion.

 

Whitley talks about distant reading, the use of digital technology to recognize patterns. This type of reading can be used for one text or to compare multiple texts. We see this use of digital technology with the tools provided in Voyant. Whitley also speaks of the importance of using patterns during writing. He believes the brain is able to comprehend information quicker when using patterns. To determine how the usage of key terms changes throughout the passage, I have used the StreamGraph tool provided by Voyant. This tool graphs the 5 most frequently used words with each word having its own horizontal line on the graph. The lines are color-coded and they fluctuate throughout the graph representing the increase and decrease in usage. The more the words are used in a specific section, the higher the hump on the line goes. For example, Jesus has a very high bump towards the end of the first third of the passage but does not have a visible bump in the beginning. This shows that the word, Jesus, is used heavily at the end of the first third of the passage unlike at the beginning where it is not really used. At the end of the passage, the graph shows the words, Jesus and son, being used heavily. This makes sense because Grundy was dying at the end of the memoir and wrote frequently of how her son would be after her passing as well as praying to Jesus. Savior is used frequently during the memoir whereas God is only used in certain sections of the reading.

 

Trends is another tool that graphs the relative frequencies of the key terms verse the document segments. This tool is similar to the StreamGraph as it creates hills and valleys as the usage increases and decreases throughout the different sections of the memoir. Trends places a dot at the specific frequency for each word at each segment. The dots are then connected creating these lines. By hovering over each dot, researchers are able to determine the exact frequency of that word in that section.

 

The last tool I used to analyze patterns in the passage is the WordTree tool. WordTree places one of the key terms at the center of a “tree” and surrounds it with different useful words that are in front and behind the keyword throughout the memoir. These words that make up the “branches” of the “tree” are called collocates. For example, the collocates of the word Savior are dear, our, and my. Researchers also have the ability to click on these collocates, and the collocates of that specific collocate will appear as smaller “branches” connecting to the collocate. This allows researchers to analyze the different contexts the keywords are used in throughout the passage. These tools provided by Voyant are examples of spatial reading as talked about in the Whitley reading. Spatial reading involves the digital visualizations used to further the comprehension of the passage. It accesses different parts of the brain to do this.

https://voyant-tools.org/?corpus=9bf1521b2f9d4815fd5232b94d287908

 

 

https://voyant-tools.org/?corpus=9bf1521b2f9d4815fd5232b94d287908

 

 

https://voyant-tools.org/?corpus=9bf1521b2f9d4815fd5232b94d287908

 

 

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Assignment #1

Assignment #1

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nv-N7N0rR6puaTNT2_QHv_918cxgYppQjCQikAxSNqQ/edit?ts=5b8ebfb1

(I did pages 18-23)

Researchers begin by taking a photo of the documents and posting them on websites for others to transcribe. Initially, it is very difficult to understand the documents. Some are harder than others depending on the time in which they were written and the language they were written in. It is also difficult if the document has been damaged overtime. In my case, I was provided an old document written in English but also containing a British accent. Some of the words had extra letters while others were missing some. I began by scanning the pages and recording the words I could easily read in the text box included. I typed question marks in the places for words I was unsure of. I then went back and analyzed the unknown words receiving help along the way from peers and Professor Faull. The final step was reading the sentences and trying to make sense of them. I attempted to figure out the last few unknown words and change words I had thought I had known but did not make sense in the sentence. By the end, I was able to obtain a sense of what my section of the memoir was all about. I was given the ability to feel the emotions of the characters in the story and relate the story to my life. I was born and raised Catholic, and I am still practicing today. I was able to understand the act of relying on and praying to Jesus as well as the thought of rising to heaven and being at peace. I attended Catholic School from pre-k 3 until I graduated middle school in 8th grade. We had been forced to write in cursive from a young age; this definitely helped in transcribing the documents. I enjoyed transcribing the documents as it is something I have never done before and differs greatly from my major.

 

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Blog #1

Blog #1

Digital artifacts are used heavily nowadays. It is easier to gain access to the artifacts if they are on the web, and one can access them from around the world. With digital artifacts, people do not need to worry about storing them or protecting them. The artifacts will not decay, and people can analyze them years into the future. One of the main disadvantages of digital archives is that the researcher cannot touch the artifact when deciphering it. They are not able to analyze the material of the artifact or the kind of “paper” it was written on. It is also easier to examine something when one can move it around and look at it from all angles. Sometimes artifacts have brail written on them, so researchers would not have the ability to feel the brail writing if it were solely a picture on the internet. Most of the large-scale digital humanities projects require a lot of time and effort to gain a full understanding of the meaning hidden in the archive. It also seems as if most of the archives are very difficult to read and interpret. Many are written in foreign or old languages and ancient script handwriting.

 

Yes, I believe we are interacting with textual material more on than screen than on the page. Most research used to be done by checking out books in the library then returning them when finished. Now, researchers have the ability to google a specific topic and look at all of the different websites containing information on that topic. The internet contains everything one needs to know about their research topic in one space. It is much easier to google something than it is to check out several books and search through them for hours. With the internet, one can search for a specific word on that web page as well as gain access to all of these books at one time without a due date. Researchers can also bookmark pages, so they can go back later and access them quickly. It is also easy to analyze archives when they are digitized because they can be accessible anywhere at anytime.

 

I feel as if researchers are becoming less emotionally attached to their artifacts since they have become digital. There is a difference between holding a huge stack of papers containing all of one’s research and scrolling through pages on the computer. With the stack of papers, one is able to feel all of their hard work unlike solely looking at a screen. Researchers are also unable to touch their artifacts if they are digitized. These people would be upset if something happened to the artifact physically, but the artifact is unable to be damaged if it is in digital form. I also believe it is difficult to obtain a physical relationship with something that is digital. It is easier when one is able to touch the artifact and obtain a sense of its physical characteristics.

 

I do not believe digital versions of material texts highlight physical elements of texts. Some artifacts are very frail, and one could tell it was created many years ago. With the artifact in digital form, it is difficult to determine when the artifact was created. Sometimes one is also able to determine where the artifact came from based off of the material of it. Some supplies were not available in specific parts of the world. Digital versions also mask the ink used which could give more clues about the artifact. I believe many physical characteristics of an artifact go unnoticed when turned into a digital form.

 

http://togointotheworld.blogspot.com/2013/06/ships-logs.html

 

http://www.titanicuniverse.com/titanic-artifacts/titanic-artifacts-15-2

 

 

 

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Practice Blog

Megan Koczur’s Practice Blog

The primary digital humanities focus of the project, Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts, is digital edition. The author speaks directly of digitalization and provides photos of Jane Austen’s prints as well as the transcribed versions. There is a tie for the secondary digital humanities focus of Diane Jakacki’s project between archive and preservation. In order to analyze an archive years after being created, historians need to preserve it. Without different forms of preservation, the frail scripts would not be decipherable. The historians need to put forth ample amounts of time in order to clearly understand these scripts and transcribe them for readers. The digital representation used in the article is helpful in showing the readers the frailness of the scripts but also giving them the ability to analyze them on their own with the addition of the transcribed prints.

 

https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/a-womans-wit-jane-austens-letters/

 

The primary digital humanities focus of the project, Six Degrees of Francis Bacon, is network analysis. The creator provides researchers with a detailed diagram of Francis Bacon and his several connections. The link provides the researcher with direct connections as well as indirect ones. The second digital humanities focus of this project is visualization. The creator provides researchers with a visual network making it easier to analyze the relationships. By clicking on the dots, one is able to determine the person, their title, and the time they were alive. One also has the ability to click the visualize tab which orients the network around a specific person. The reader then sees the connections to this specific person. Users can also click on the lines and determine the confidence rate at which these two people knew each other as well as when their time alive overlapped. The different dots in the network represent direct and indirect connections. Historians put ample amounts of time into research and sorting in order to create this detailed network so readers can easily understand and analyze the connections. The digital representation used is vital in giving the readers a clear diagram of the numerous connections of Francis Bacon as well as many others.

 

https://www.biography.com/people/francis-bacon-9194632