I breathe a sigh as it’s not Dan Brown
A new meme floating about is I Write Like, a statistical analyzer wherein one pastes a writing sample — longer is better — and the software determines, according to metrics the programmer has chosen, which author’s writing most resembles.
Reading on forums, it’s apparently actually doing something, and the author has promised to provide more info on the algorithms.
I posted a chapter from my unfinished sci-fi novel — a bit reluctantly — and this is what I got:
OK. I guess I can live with that.
The recent Sharron Angle post gets this:
I write like
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
Pardon me while I go celebrate. There’s nothing like affirmation by a piece of software using secret criteria.
[ Replace this ad for $1/month ]
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2 Responses to “I breathe a sigh as it’s not Dan Brown”
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July 16th, 2010 at 11h14
My post about Jenn’s divorce lawyer also gets David Foster Wallace. So does my post about George W. Bush’s I.Q., which I did rather expect. My first post about the Tea Party? David Foster Wallace. So does my neo-Swiftian essay about the Beltway Sniper, my confession about health care, my rejection of the local redneck bar — and the story about my struggle with prescription medication that almost everyone, with the significant exception of my defense attorney during a lawsuit, loved.
Apparently the software is very good at detecting authors who crib liberally from David Foster Wallace.
However: The long, silly joke about luminous intensity gets H.P. Lovecraft. My “What I Belive” post, which someone tagged as [christianity rant] on del.icio.us got … H.P. Lovecraft. Umm … hmmm.
July 16th, 2010 at 11h24
I have my suspicion that they use an algorithm similar to the “gender genie” that counts words.