Is writing style determined by a computer algorithm?

[lisab]

I pasted in several paragraphs from a paper I did for a physics class. It came back, You write like Isaac Asimov. Ha, yeah I wish.

Which author do you write like?

http://iwl.me/

 

[collinsmark]

I pasted in some homework help I just gave (regarding Gauss' law) and it said I write like Edgar Allen Poe.

I don't know if that's good or bad. Could students find my guidance dreary? This, I ponder weak and weary.

 

[Math Is Hard]

ha ha nice link. It says my research writing is reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe.

Once I pondered weak and weary
Upon conditional probability judgment theory:

When making a conditional probability judgment, people estimate the probability that a specific outcome will result given a certain condition. A common finding in studies of conditional probability judgments is that the likelihood of a presented outcome is highly overestimated. This effect is especially strong when people are asked to imagine in detail or explain an outcome (Hirt & Markman, 1995). Focusing on a particular outcome appears to prevent people from giving sufficient consideration to the possible alternatives. One explanation is that the mere consideration of a proposition, such as "y will happen given condition x", tends to create an illusory feeling that the proposition is true (Fiedler, 2000) increasing its perceived probabilistic weight. This phenomenon is similar to the confirmation bias, in which people tend to cherry-pick from new information that confirms existing beliefs, and to the hindsight bias, in which people tend to see presented outcomes as more predictable than they actually are.

 

[ZQrn]

Wallace's novels often combine various writing modes or voices, and incorporate jargon and vocabulary (sometimes invented) from a wide variety of fields. His writing featured self-generated abbreviations and acronyms, long multi-clause sentences, and a notable use of explanatory footnotes and endnotes—often nearly as expansive as the text proper. He used endnotes extensively in Infinite Jest and footnotes in "Octet" as well as in the great majority of his nonfiction after 1996. On the Charlie Rose show in 1997, Wallace claimed that the notes were used to disrupt the linearity of the narrative, to reflect his perception of reality without jumbling the entire structure. He suggested that he could have instead jumbled up the sentences, "but then no one would read it."

Seems about right.

 

[Mu naught]

I bet you if you type random garbage it will tell you you write like some great author. I'll paste the following and see what it says:

"When Adam sidewalk into fairground red the elephants tube slid before the night."

Your Badge
I write like
Margaret Atwood.

I wouldn't be surprised if it just picks a random author. If it helps your ego fine but don't take it seriously.

 

[rootX]

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction.

I pasted my assignment

 

[Office_Shredder]

Apparently Lewis Carrol wrote in LaTex a lot

 

[zomgwtf]

H.P. Lovecraft.

 

[xunxine]

I wouldn't be surprised if it just picks a random author. If it helps your ego fine but don't take it seriously.

I used a blog entry & got Cory Doctorow.
Now I have to google to know who that is...

 

[Office_Shredder]

I used a blog entry & got Cory Doctorow.
Now I have to google to know who that is...

He's a blogger!

 

[DavidSnider]

I got Kurt Vonnegut :\

 

[Office_Shredder]

This just got real.

Input:

The Nerd Herd

Herd of Nerds

That Herd of Nerds!
That Herd of Nerds!
I do not like that Herd of Nerds!

Do you like to play with words?
I do not like that, Herd of Nerds
I do not like to play with words.

Would you like to with a bird?

I would not like to with a bird.
I would not like that overheard.

I do not like to play with words
I do not like that, Herd of Nerds

Would you play with me in a car?
Would you do it for a cigar?

I will not play with you in a car.
I will not do it for a cigar.
I do no wordplay here or there
I do not do it anywhere
I do not like to play with words
I do not like to, Herd of Nerds

Would you play if I shed a tear?
Or if I bribed you with a beer?

Not for a tear
Not for a beer
Not with a bird
If it can be overheard
I will not do wordplay here or there
I will not do it anywhere
I do not like to play with words
I do not like that, Herd of Nerds!

Output:
Dr. ****ing Seuss! Nah, I'm just kidding. It said I write like Dan Brown

 

[Pythagorean]

"David Foster Wallace"

No idea who that is...

 

[FrancisZ]

"Who do you write like?"

I write like a nut, I guess--mostly though, because it amuses me! Here's an actual letter I wrote to a puzzle company. The truth is: I was dead serious...info@masterpiecesinc.com
CC: francis_ziegler@alum.shu.edu
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2010 01:56:27 GMT
Subject: Help: Missing 2 pieces!Dear Sir or Madam:I am writing to request assistance in the replacement of 2 pieces of my
puzzle: the subject of the "Last Supper," by artist Leonardo Da Vinci.

By my estimation, this puzzle would ordinarily be 19 by 58 pieces square,
for a total of 1102 puzzle parts. The package that I had purchased is in
fact the same amount total; however, there are apparently duplicates of 2
pieces, rather than the 2 that I actually need to complete the picture.

Were you to start counting from the lower left corner, the 2 voids in my puzzle
occur at coordinates (7, 10) and (7, 11)--or 7 to the right, and then up 10; as well
as 7 to the right, and up 11--literally one above the other.

If necessary, I can send you a photograph of my MOSTLY completed puzzle. I
am also willing to mail you the duplicate pieces...should they belong to
some other unfortunate soul.

Please advise.Very sincerely,
Francis
Ziegler

 

[GeorginaS]

"David Foster Wallace"

No idea who that is...

Me too.

And, only one of the greatest, most brilliant authors of my generation. Amazing work that can make you laugh until you cry. Vocabulary that makes you feel as if you barely speak the language. Passionate, brilliant. I own all of his work.

 

[Borg]

I pasted in some notes from my daily log and got James Joyce. lol

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I steal my stuff from a wide variety of authors so if I were to cut and paste anything I wrote into that site, I probably would get the particular author I stole that piece from. Just to make sure, I took the first 3 paragraphs of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and pasted it in. As expected, it said I write like Mark Twain.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Cory Doctorow- I doubt I'm a good reflection!

 

[Andre]

I tried this, I wrote at random:

“If a conclusion is attractive, I’m tempted to lower my standards”, This is a quote of Berkeley’s professor Richard Muller, meaning that he would be tempted to consider a conclusion to be true, despite that the logics behind the conclusion was flawed – conditional probability judgment. But he did not lower his standards, which makes me wondering who would; especially if an unattractive but objectively logical conclusion would be at odds with common consensus, threatening beloved dogma’s.

Actually, I wonder if it has ever been researched how much conditional probability judgment can be related to Myers Briggs personality types, more specifically, the four temperaments as defined by David Keirsley. Who would commit noble cause corruption more easily? The rationalists (NT), the idealists (NF), the artisans (SP) or the guardian(SJ)? Obviously, predictions are easy to make. However, even more importantly, can such a investigation be strictly objective or would the researcher fall into the trap, that he was researching? Cherry picking, cooking or doctering data, in order to prove his prediction to be right?

which made me writing like James Joyce

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I gave it the opening to a short story I started and it came back with Raymond Chandler, a classic pulp writer. lol

 

[BobG]

I got David Foster Wallace for a paper on coordinate transformations.

I got Cory Doctorow for an anecdote posted on an internet forum.

For this piece:

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

It gave me L. Frank Baum

I guess it's database of authors is limited, since that's a fairly famous poem by William Carlos Williams.

After that, I pasted in almost the original text about coordinate transformations, except this time it said I wrote like Shakespeare (I left one paragraph out, that had too many numbers in it, since it provided an example).

I think the second analysis is probably more accurate. The relationship between sine and cosine always made for a good romantic tragedy.

 

[turbo]

I copied my last post from the food thread into the site, and it said that I write like Stephen King.

Edit: I pasted in a post from the thread on pictures from the oil spill, and it still said I write like Stephen King.

 

[Borg]

I copied my last post from the food thread into the site, and it said that I write like Stephen King.

Edit: I pasted in a post from the thread on pictures from the oil spill, and it still said I write like Stephen King.

Does this mean that your food is going to come to life and kill everyone?

 

[dlgoff]

Oh my. I can't believe I write like Arthur C. Clarke.

What could this mean?

 

[lisab]

I wonder if Isaac Asimov would have struggled with the title of this thread like I did. Now in the clear light of morning I see it's really bad (well ok it's foggy, but still).

I suppose the standard, correct English would be, Like whom do you write? but that sounds horrible.

 

[turbo]

Does this mean that your food is going to come to life and kill everyone?

No, it will turn me into a zombie and I'll kill everyone. Mmmmm...Brains!

 

[jtbell]

I fed it this post which I wrote a few minutes ago, after stripping out the quotes, and it told me I write like Stephen King.

I hope that says more about Stephen King's knowledge of relativity than it does about mine!

 

[George Jones]

David Fsoter Wallace.

I suppose the standard, correct English would be, Like whom do you write? but that sounds horrible.

This sounds horrible only until you hear/ use this style. Over the last couple of years, I have made an effort to speak like this at home. Now my wife (who doesn't have English as her first language) and my daughter (who turns four in a month) often speak like this.

 

[Borg]

No, it will turn me into a zombie and I'll kill everyone. Mmmmm...Brains!

At least you will have a good selection of high quality brains here.

 

[Leptos]

I suppose the standard, correct English would be, Like whom do you write? but that sounds horrible.

In America, colloquial English is correct Ingles.

 

[ZQrn]

I wonder if Isaac Asimov would have struggled with the title of this thread like I did. Now in the clear light of morning I see it's really bad (well ok it's foggy, but still).

I suppose the standard, correct English would be, Like whom do you write? but that sounds horrible.

'whom do you write like' is good enough. And why not 'As who write you'?

In case people start complaining about that a sentence supposedly can't end on a preposition, that rule is one of the most controversial and strange rules English prescriptive linguistics has ever produced, no one knows where it comes from, and all linguistics will tell you that sentences and clauses have ended on preposition long before that rule appeared, and will do so long after people will finally realize it makes no sense. The 'objective whom' has its historical basis though, but abuses like 'whom has lung cancer' appear far too often.

Of course, some people might complain about the use of 'like him/whom' when 'as he/who' would be the preferred form accordingly them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar_nazi#Problems

Split infinitives are older than infinitives really, or at least when 'to walk' still meant 'at/during the walking'.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Don't be so sure:

100 million owls can't be wrong

 

[waht]

I've submitted my past 3 page essays:

First essay: Kurt Vonnegut

Second essay: David Foster Wallace

Third essay: Issac Asimov

 

[Office_Shredder]

If you just spam "elf" a bunch of times you get J.K. Rowling

The word murder? Edgar allen poe.

I suspect when they say it analyzes your word choice and writing style, they really just mean word choice. Probably a simple document comparison algorithm based on word counts to see which author's writing you compare most similarly too

Interesting exercise: pick a word, and guess which author you will be compared to when you put it in (you'll need to repeat the word a bunch of times to get past the minimum word limit... use copy paste for this).

 

[BobG]

'whom do you write like' is good enough. And why not 'As who write you'?

In case people start complaining about that a sentence supposedly can't end on a preposition, that rule is one of the most controversial and strange rules English prescriptive linguistics has ever produced, no one knows where it comes from, and all linguistics will tell you that sentences and clauses have ended on preposition long before that rule appeared, and will do so long after people will finally realize it makes no sense. The 'objective whom' has its historical basis though, but abuses like 'whom has lung cancer' appear far too often.

Of course, some people might complain about the use of 'like him/whom' when 'as he/who' would be the preferred form accordingly them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar_nazi#Problems

Split infinitives are older than infinitives really, or at least when 'to walk' still meant 'at/during the walking'.

You make a good case for simplifying our language, much as the metric system simplifies our units of measure.

It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself.

Wow! The analyzer correctly identifies who wrote that paragraph (but it doesn't identify which book it came from).

This is a fun little tool.

 

[ZQrn]

You make a good case for simplifying our language, much as the metric system simplifies our units of measure.

Did I?

I use the objective whom all the time, and do so correctly, if I may be so bold to state, I maintain spellings as connexion, inflexion, formulae, octopodes...

I'm just pointing out that a lot of linguistic prescription is ultimately based on nothing. The most awkward of these might be that 'its' is actually a contamination comparable to writing 'dont', the word 'its' is a fairly recent misspelling of 'it's'. Just as we say 'John's car' and 'John's stand there' we say 'it's car' and 'it's going to the store', or at least, 'we' did so till quite recently.

Variously one encounters arguments such as that it's supposed to be 'its' when it's possessive because it's a pronoun. A: it's not a pronoun, it's a noun phrase with an enclitic morpheme. B: even if it were, that's a particularly nonsensical reason, the apostrophe marks a vowel deletion, and just as 'John's' originated from a shorter form of 'Johnes', so did 'its' from 'ites', and up to 1920 there were still reputable authors who condemned the practice.

What I'm trying to say with this ranting is, never believe an English teacher, they hardly know anything about English, they reproduce rules as taught to them without questioning and without checking, there are few courses in education filled with such blatant lies as language courses. They aren't about teaching you theoretical or practical knowledge, they are about controlling your life and making up lies to justify arbitrary rules.

 

[drizzle]

I got David Foster Wallace for a few lines of my thesis... And Mark Twain for a few rhetoric lines of mine... I think I can get them all, just give me a few moments!

 

[Office_Shredder]

I'm just pointing out that a lot of linguistic prescription is ultimately based on nothing. The most awkward of these might be that 'its' is actually a contamination comparable to writing 'dont', the word 'its' is a fairly recent misspelling of 'it's'. Just as we say 'John's car' and 'John's stand there' we say 'it's car' and 'it's going to the store', or at least, 'we' did so till quite recently.

How is not using an apostrophe to denote possession the same as not using an apostrophe to denote a contraction?

Also, you care way too much about conforming to English as used in the early 20th century it seems. English class is designed to control your life? What?

 

[Alienjoey]

I got Cory Doctorow, whom I've never heard of before.

But the first paragraph from Sarah Palin's book gets James Joyce...Scary!

 

[ZQrn]

How is not using an apostrophe to denote possession the same as not using an apostrophe to denote a contraction?

Because in 'its' it is a contraction, it's a contraction, or more properly a vowel deletion of ites.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=its&searchmode=none

Just like 'John's' is a vowel deletion of 'Johnes', they are the same suffix with the same historical basis.

Also, you care way too much about conforming to English as used in the early 20th century it seems. English class is designed to control your life? What?

I prefer to spell things sensibly and consistently and not follow arbitrary rules for sake of peer pressure. Therefore I write realize, connexion, inflexion, but also fetus and cetera as foetus and caetera are folk etymologies.

 

[dlgoff]

This is a fun little tool.

You been putting other members post in there?

 

[lisab]

You been putting other members post in there?

...why, erm, no ...

 

[physlover1]

I write like
Kurt Vonnegut
^_^
actually i don't know him

 

[fluidistic]

I also got Kurt Vonnegut.
Now is someone willing to copy say 2 sentences of a random Stephen King's book and see if Stephen King writes like Stephen King?

 

[turbo]

Vonnegut wrote in short simple sentences using words that any teenager could grasp. I think he vacationed in my neck of the woods. There is a remote pond with some impressive brookies a bit north of here named Kilgore Pond - the likely source of the name for his fictional author "Kilgore Trout". It is said that he got the name as a pseudonym for his friend Theodore Sturgeon, but I like my guess better.

 

[physics girl phd]

I too have been analyzed to write like David Foster Wallace, which thrills me, since I submitted two segments from writings that I am considering for actual publication (one short story and one longer memoir work), and one of the individuals who I'd like to think my writing is modeled after is DFW.

I think in large part it is because of long, multi-clausal sentences, though I'll confess the five paragraphs I grabbed from the longer work did contain extensive footnotes (this is the work that is more directly modeled after DFW's style).

Edited to add: I just submitted one of my longer posts from the education section, and it too yields David Foster Wallace. Were it not from the notes that others get different results for different submissions, I'd be afraid that the program has tagged my computer and would be returning the same response for all my submissions from this one.

Also: A book review on "Cosmic Society: Towards a Sociology of the Universe" that I co-wrote with my spouse gets analyzed as Arthur C. Clark. We wrote a fairly scathing review, to which my main contribution was statistical analysis that contributed to our scathingness (but not directly in our review) and the phrase " theoretical gobbledygook" which is in the review.

 

[Tobias Funke]

I call the big one Bitey. Dental Plan! Lisa needs Braces. Hello Joe! Iron helps us play. I call the big one Bitey. Dental Plan! Lisa needs Braces. Hello Joe! Iron helps us play. I call the big one Bitey. Dental Plan! Lisa needs Braces. Hello Joe! Iron helps us play. I call the big one Bitey. Dental Plan! Lisa needs Braces. Hello Joe! Iron helps us play. I call the big one Bitey. Dental Plan! Lisa needs Braces. Hello Joe! Iron helps us play.

This churned out James Joyce.

 

[BobG]

Did James Joyce suffer from periodontal disease?

 

[rootX]

Wow! The analyzer correctly identifies who wrote that paragraph (but it doesn't identify which book it came from).

This is a fun little tool.

I noticed it correctly identified Mark Twain from two of his fiction writings however failed when I used his non-fiction writing.. and in one other fiction bookThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer --> Mark Twain

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court --> Charles Dickens

http://www.literaturepage.com/authors/Mark-Twain.html

 

[Anonymous217]

This seems very inaccurate to me. I pasted a Sense and Sensibility essay I wrote a year ago and it said I wrote like Jane Austen (I took out all the quotes). Really now?