Blog post 5: Data mining & quantifying literature

 Blog post 5: Data mining & quantifying literature

“Data mining is an automated analysis that looks for patterns and extracts meaningful information in digital files.” This quote is a great example of how you can look at interesting patterns and insights from large datasets, utilizing techniques such as clustering, classification, and predictive analytics using data mining. Voyant is a great example of this concept because it allows users to explore and visualize textual data interactively. With features like word frequency analysis, topic modeling, and sentiment analysis, Voyant enables researchers and analysts to uncover trends and relationships within texts, transforming qualitative data into quantitative insights. This makes it an invaluable resource for anyone looking to leverage data mining techniques to understand complex narratives, identify themes, and gain deeper insights into textual datasets. When using Voyant for our project, I was able to look at complex factors that would take me a significant amount of time to complete. By using Voyant in my project I have been able to observe several benefits that enhance both the analysis and presentation of data. The tool allows you to visualize text through various formats, such as word clouds, graphs, and trend lines, making it easier to identify key themes and patterns at a glance. You are also able to look at large bodies of text, helping uncover relationships and insights that might be overlooked in traditional reading. Voyant also supports collaborative analysis, allowing multiple users to engage with the data simultaneously, facilitating richer discussions and deeper understanding. Overall, Voyant transforms the process of analyzing textual evidence into a more efficient, insightful, and engaging experience.

I also found it interesting how you can use data mining in different forms of media and evidence that surpassed voyants' abilities. “It has become a part of research methods in text, music, sound recording, images, and multimodal communications studies with tools customized for these purposes.” Being able to extract data from music is something that I found very interesting. Much like books, music consists of many deep meanings and uses of words. Being able to take a wide sample size of information and compress it into a set of organized data is very beneficial to the person researching. 

Comments

  1. Emily KiahOctober 1, 2024 at 8:13 AM

    I like how you explain what data mining is and put it in simple terms to easily understand. I also enjoyed how you discussed voyant tools since it is very popular in the class and relates with data mining. For my own text I have found that room and black peak at the same time which would mean that during the story those two have a correlation. When reading the story it is about a man named Darce, his name peaks in the beginning and end meaning the middle is most likely dialog so his name isn't mentioned much but, in the beginning, and end the narrator describes where Dacre lives and probably concludes the story in the end. The story involves a black funnel which is somewhat haunted.

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