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CWRCshop2 (Ryerson): Using Voyant for Analyzing Texts

Wed, 10/26/2011 - 19:41 — StefanSinclair

This is a script for a workshop on using Voyant for the CWRC community. It is available at http://hermeneuti.ca/workshops/cwrc2

1.0 Introduction

2.0 Using a single Voyant Tool: Cirrus

Voyant Tools has a number of different tools that can be composed into skins or used individually. We will start with just one tool called Cirrus that can then spawn other tools. We will try it with Jane Austen's Persuasion.

Cirrus (Austen's Persuasion): http://voyeurtools.org/tool/Cirrus/?corpus=JaneAusten&docIndex=5&stopList=stop.en.taporware.txt&toolFlow=simple (backup)

The Cirrus tool shows you a word cloud A visual presentation of keywords drawn from a text, visually differentiated based on their position and frequency of use in that text. Return to Glossary. of high frequency words. Some questions to ask yourself:

  • What words did you expect? What words are missing? What words are interesting?
  • How does the tool arrange words and choose colours? Is there any correspondence between size and frequency?

Here are some more Cirrus visualizations to consider:

These types of word clouds are prevalent from academia to advertising – they quickly provide an intriguing representation of a text, as demonstrated by this example of studying gendered languages in toy advertising. But they're ability to rapidly convey a picture with words comes at the cost of information reduction, and some are highly critical of word clouds as hermeneutical tools. What do you think?

Try It: Try clicking on a word. It will launch a second tab or window with a list of the texts in the corpus with the frequency of the word you clicked on.

Try It: Now try double-clicking on one of the texts. This should launch another tab or window with a Key Word In ContextIn text analysis, context refers to the text surrounding a string of characters, which may be as short as a word or as long as a paragraph. Context is particularly important when generating a concordance for a string. Return to Glossary. (KWICA concordance or keyword in context (KWIC) is usually represented as a list of occurrences of a word with some limited context shown (words to the left and words to the right). Here is an example that shows the occurrences of the word "dream" in A Midsummer Night's Dream in TACTweb: I.1/577.1 | Four nights will quickly dream away the time; | And I.1/578.2 Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; | Brief as the II.2/585.1 | Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here! | Lysander, III.2/591.1 this derision | Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision, | IV.1/593.1 as the fierce vexation of a dream. | But first I will IV.1/594.2 to me | That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think | The IV.1/594.2 rare | vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to IV.1/594.2 the wit of man to | say what dream it was: man is but an IV.1/594.2 he go | about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there IV.1/594.2 his heart to report, what my dream | was. I will get Peter IV.1/594.2 to write a ballad of | this dream: it shall be called IV.1/594.2 it shall be called Bottom's dream, | because it hath no V.1/599.1 | Following darkness like a dream, | Now are frolic: not a V.1/599.2 theme, | No more yielding but a dream, | Gentles, do not See also the definition at Wikipedia. Return to Glossary.) of the word in that text.

3.0 Using a Reading Skin

Voyant Tools can also be composed into "skins" that combine tools as panels so that they can be used interactively. Here is the same Austen corpus in a simple skin:

http://voyeurtools.org/?corpus=JaneAusten&stopList=stop.en.taporware.txt (backup)

In this skin clicking in one window will often (but not always) update other windows. Try the following:

  • Triggering: Click on words in the Cirrus word cloud A visual presentation of keywords drawn from a text, visually differentiated based on their position and frequency of use in that text. Return to Glossary.. Then click on a text in the Word Trends and play with the KWICA concordance or keyword in context (KWIC) is usually represented as a list of occurrences of a word with some limited context shown (words to the left and words to the right). Here is an example that shows the occurrences of the word "dream" in A Midsummer Night's Dream in TACTweb: I.1/577.1 | Four nights will quickly dream away the time; | And I.1/578.2 Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; | Brief as the II.2/585.1 | Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here! | Lysander, III.2/591.1 this derision | Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision, | IV.1/593.1 as the fierce vexation of a dream. | But first I will IV.1/594.2 to me | That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think | The IV.1/594.2 rare | vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to IV.1/594.2 the wit of man to | say what dream it was: man is but an IV.1/594.2 he go | about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there IV.1/594.2 his heart to report, what my dream | was. I will get Peter IV.1/594.2 to write a ballad of | this dream: it shall be called IV.1/594.2 it shall be called Bottom's dream, | because it hath no V.1/599.1 | Following darkness like a dream, | Now are frolic: not a V.1/599.2 theme, | No more yielding but a dream, | Gentles, do not See also the definition at Wikipedia. Return to Glossary..
  • Changing Settings: Try changing the settings for the Cirrus by clicking on the small gear icon. Try playing with the Word Trends
  • Showing and Hiding Panels: Try showing and hiding panels using the small up and down arrows in the upper-right of the panels.

When in doubt just restart the session by hitting refresh.

4.0 Using Voyant on You Own Text

Voyant Tools can be used on your own text or corpus. To do that you go to the simple URLA URL (Uniform Resource Locator), sometimes called a web address, is used to locate and identify web content. For more information, see the Wikipedia. Return to Glossary. for the tool:

Voyant: http://voyeurtools.org

Just the Cirrus tool in Voyant: http://voyeurtools.org/tool/Cirrus/

Backup version: http://beta.voyant-tools.org/

You will get panelWeb frameworks like the TAPoR Portal organize information into panels (sometimes called portlets or coplets.) These can me minimized, maximized and closed using the three buttons in the upper left-hand corner of the panel. With Voyant you can export panels of results and place them into other web sites. Return to Glossary. that asks you for a text. You can provide:

  • One or more URLs to texts on the web
  • Upload a text or a zipped collection of texts
  • Upload plain textPlain text refers to a text without any additional formatting affecting its human readability, often found in .txt files. Plain text files do not require a specialized program, such as a word processor, to read them. For more information, see the Wikipedia. Return to Glossary., HTMLHTML, or Hypertext Markup Language, is a language used in web development to make a text readable by web browsers. HTML is primarily formed of paired elements, such as < body >< /body > or < p >< /p >, that apply some characteristic to the text within it. One pair of elements may be nested inside another like this: < body >< p >< /p >< /body > In this case, < body >< /body > marks the beginning and end of the body of the document, while < p >< /p > marks the beginning and end of a paragraph within the body. Elements may also be modified by attributes and attribute values: < p class="hangingindent" > In this case, the paragraph element has the attribute 'class' and the attribute value 'hangingindent'. Attribute/attribute value pairs are frequently used in combination with CSS to apply formatting to the text within the element. Return to Glossary. , or XMLXML, or Extensible Markup Language, is a language used in web development to make a text readable by web browsers and/or store data. Like HTML, XML is primarily formed of paired elements. Unlike HTML, the elements are defined by the user, rather than predefined. For example, both < book >< /book > and < murfle >< /murfle > are valid element pairs. These elements apply characteristics and metadata to the text within them. One pair of elements may be nested inside another: < book >< title >< /title >< /book > Elements may also be modified by attributes and attribute values: < book format="hardcover" > In this case, the book element has the attribute 'format' and the attribute value 'hardcover'. In addition to storing metadata about the text, attribute/attribute value pairs are frequently used in combination with CSS to apply formatting to the text within the element. Return to Glossary. texts
  • Upload a PDF (and Voyant will try to extract the text)

Voyant is forgiving, but there are none-the-less bugs.

Note that you can create a persistent URLA URL (Uniform Resource Locator), sometimes called a web address, is used to locate and identify web content. For more information, see the Wikipedia. Return to Glossary. for your corpus – that way your link can be shared or bookmarked and you won't need to reload the texts into Voyant. Click the save icon in the blue bar at the top and the first URLA URL (Uniform Resource Locator), sometimes called a web address, is used to locate and identify web content. For more information, see the Wikipedia. Return to Glossary. will be the link for your Voyant corpus.

5.0 Other Stuff