posted
The site uses a simplified version of the algorithm huh?
I'm going to use this logic as much as possible. Well, of course that work was sloppy and useless, but I was only using a simplified version of my competence.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
There internet is not required to be useful. It is free to be as sloppy as it likes.
Furthermore, there is probably a sound reason why they didn't make an online version more robust. Hosting/bandwidth fees come to mind.
Posts: 433 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
The plain fact that "feminine" triggers are words that as a rule are rare in academic papers, tells me that this whole process is basically flawed.
I submitted a paper on Mozart string quartet, and there would have been near zero ocassion to use the words "me" "myself" "we" "hers" "she" or "your." On the other hand the male words are all essential in an academic paper of any kind. This algorithm is based partly on a sexist principle, that women are morely likely in general to write in a non-academic setting. Ridiculous.
This statement from the paper is interesting though "Those features which are more prevalent in male writing are almost invariably more prevalent in non-fiction."
Edit: I must say that I find the related paper linked on the site to be much more interesting than the algorithm. The abstract references the fact that the study is based on writing for an "unseen audience," which substantiates the notion that the author is writing "to" no sex in particular. Knowing myself slightly better than I know any other writer, I think I write more with the idea of a female reader than a male (I am male). This probably has to do with, or is the cause of, my having collaborated much more with female writers on many writing projects, and having talked MUCH more with women about writing than with men. For example, I have only ever peer edited female friends' writing, and I have only ever asked women to read my work. I don't exactly know why this is, except that I grew up as the only boy in a family with three sisters.
This is something I'd like to explore further though, since the thought of who I was writing TOO has never really occurred to me before.
quote: This algorithm is based partly on a sexist principle, that women are morely likely in general to write in a non-academic setting. Ridiculous.
Is it wrong? Who publishes more academic papers, men or women? If it is men and by a significant margin, then will you rescind your comment? Would you be surprised to hear that in medical fields at least women are vastly outpublished by men?
Are women then not less likely to write academic papers?
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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quote: This algorithm is based partly on a sexist principle, that women are morely likely in general to write in a non-academic setting. Ridiculous.
Is it wrong? Who publishes more academic papers, men or women? If it is men and by a significant margin, then will you rescind your comment? Would you be surprised to hear that in medical fields at least women are vastly outpublished by men?
Are women then not less likely to write academic papers?
You forgot to quote this part:
quote:On the other hand the male words are all essential in an academic paper of any kind.
I think it's fairly obvious that Orincoro means that most academic writing will bias toward a "male" classification because the words chosen to represent "maleness" are found in academic writing far more than those chosen to represent "femaleness." The relative numbers of actual men and women writing in an academic setting then have no relationship to the results of this algorithm.
//Edit to add:
Fairly obvious unless I'm putting words in his mouth. Which, as a male, I tend to do.
quote:Is it wrong? Who publishes more academic papers, men or women? If it is men and by a significant margin, then will you rescind your comment? Would you be surprised to hear that in medical fields at least women are vastly outpublished by men?
I think you're [plural you're] missing the point. The algorithm's goal is to discern the gender of the author. If it fails, then it fails.
Concerning academic papers: Since many (if not most) universities have more women attending than men, I should think that in studentland, at least, there are more papers written by women than by men.
I think suggesting that you can generalize that academic language is male is as thoughtless as the algorithm itself.
If you were going to make this kind of algorithm work at least, let's say 80% of the time, you'd have have to take in to account a lot more than the language, and assign probabilities. For instance, you could say that if the paper is about women's rights, it's more likely to be written by a woman. If there are more male engineers, you could assign the reverse etc. Then you could take into account sentence structure- maybe. Then maybe word usage, if you could find enough of a correlation. I think just using word usage is insulting to both genders.
Hopefully, the original algorithm was far more complex than this one.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Someone should find an electronic copy of "The Women Men Don't See," by Triptree, and run it through this.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote: This algorithm is based partly on a sexist principle, that women are morely likely in general to write in a non-academic setting. Ridiculous.
Is it wrong? Who publishes more academic papers, men or women? If it is men and by a significant margin, then will you rescind your comment? Would you be surprised to hear that in medical fields at least women are vastly outpublished by men?
Are women then not less likely to write academic papers?
Calculating for a specific paper, in an individual case, by assessing the greater odds of whether more or less papers are published by women is cheating. It may return a statistically accurate sampling, but it does not reliably judge individual samples.
The algorithm should judge each case individually and on its on merits. However this algorithm is flawed because it maintains assumptions about "feminine" writing, specifically that women are less likely to be the authors of "academic" papers, and therefore associating "academic" qualities with male writers. However if you read the paper, you'll find that IT maintains that academic writing, by nature makes the gender of the author ambiguous. The fact therefore, that academic writing is similar in ways to male fiction writing does not signify when you are judging an academic paper- and the results should not return as male because the paper is "academic" in nature.
If the algorithm depends on broad statistical probabilities in order to judge specific cases, such as the idea (and I do not submit that it IS a fact because I don't know) that men publish more academic papers, and therefore are more likely to be the author of any specific paper, then the algorithm is basically flawed. It is unreliable in judging specific samples, and will only (possibly) return a statistically consistent number of male over female responses. This does not make the test accurate or reliable, it makes it typical internet BS, imho. The paper is much more clear, I'd suggest reading that instead of using the algorithm.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Shigosei: I think the thing that bothers me is that "academic" writing is somehow more masculine.
Reverse the descriptors then, it's like conceptual algebra:
Masculine writing is somehow more "academic"
This is highlighted in the paper, and it is attributed to fundamental differences in the way that male and female writers explore objects and relationships. In fiction writing, men more often describe objects and women more often describe relationships. There is also a point made in the paper about feminine fiction writing having a stronger awareness of the self. These qualities are somewhat un-academic, but when women write academically, they seem to do just as well as men, it's just that men write that way all the time (or much more).
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Perhaps it is that when men get around to writing, they write about things. Perhaps it is not that all their writing is academic, but that they only write when there is a due date.
There are so many possible reasons for the obvious failure of this algorithm that the guesses as to the reasons tell me a great deal more about the poster than about the algorithm.
I'm annoyed with some of you. *wrinkles nose*
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