Investigation about the length of words found in different types of newspapers.
Maths coursework
Investigation about the length of words found in different types of newspapers
Initial plan
I have been asked to create and carry out an investigation to see if my hypothesis is correct or incorrect.
I am going to be comparing two newspapers articles, one from a tabloid and one from a broadsheet. Tabloids are newspapers such as 'The Sun', 'The Mirror', 'The Daily Mail", 'The Express' and 'The Star'. In contrast to these, there are broadsheets such as 'The Times', 'The Guardian' and 'The Daily Telegraph'. The name of the tabloid I am going to be using is called 'The Sun' and the name of the broadsheet is called 'The Daily Telegraph'.
Hypothesis
I have decided to use two newspapers to get my articles from, for the reason that I believe the length of words in 'The Daily Telegraph' will be longer and more complex than the length of words in the 'The Sun'.
I believe this is so, for the reason that different sorts of people read both of these newspapers. I feel 'The Daily Telegraph' is for people who have more time to read, and that are from the professions. 'The Sun' targets younger audiences and is much broader. There is a broader range of people especially with respect to literacy skills. I believe the sun is aimed at people who want their news served up as entertainment; therefore it is designed to be easier to read.
Further more I believe different newspapers show different stories, stories the reader can relate to or stories that inform the reader. I believe personal stories are more often in tabloids where as stories that inform are shown in broadsheets.
The articles are about a seven year old girl called Toni-Ann who has been "deliberately killed" to stop her identifying her fathers murderer. I am going to take the first 100 words from the second paragraph on each article. However when I compare my articles, if there are names given I will not include then in my investigation. For the reason being, that you can shorten the length of the name. It is not possible to alternate in this case. I am going to focus on the actual story then on the way it is reported.
I believe that the media, foremost tabloids, creates the varied emotions and ideas. Often known as the 'quality press' being more informing and formal in the manner they put across information and news stories.
I am going to try and avoid bias by producing a random article letter account. To do this, I will choose the middle page in both newspapers, making sure it is the right hand side in both papers, I will still count from the second paragraph excluding certain words for instance, names.
I will initially record my information on a tally chart then throughout my investigation, I will use box and whisker diagrams, pie charts and frequency tables so I can find the mean, medium and the mode.
Furthermore I am going to compare the number of words in a sentence, using the same articles in which I used for the number of letters in an article.
Frequency tables
Broadsheet paper 'The Daily Telegraph'
Total = 100
Total = 470
Mean = 4.7
Mode = 3
Number of letters
Frequency
Number of letters X frequency
0
0
0
4
4
2
6
32
3
9
57
4
5
60
5
1
55
6
1
66
7
8
56
8
6
48
9
8
72
0
2
20
Frequency table
Tabloid paper 'The Sun'
Number of letters
Frequency
Number of letters X frequency
0
0
2
2
28
2
4
69
3
23
60
4
5
90
5
5
90
6
8
56
7
2
6
8
4
36
9
0
0
0
0
0
Total = 447
Total = 100
Mean = 4.7
Mode = 3
Comments on the Frequency tables Broadsheet paper 'The Daily Telegraph' and Frequency table Tabloid paper 'The Sun'
From the frequency tables you can see that 'The Daily Telegraph' has 470 letters. 'The Sun has only 447 letters, that is 23 words less than the 'The Daily Telegraph'. I believe this shows that 'The Sun' uses less detailed words for a larger range of audience where 'The Daily Telegraph' uses more complex sentences.
The median for the length of words in 'The Daily Telegraph' is 6 letters long. However, the median length of words in 'The Sun' is 5. There is a difference between them both, which is 1. This shows that 'The Daily Telegraph' uses longer more complex words.
I believe where the mode is the identical in both articles, the range of length in 'The Daily Telegraph' is greater, where 'The Sun' only goes up to 9 letters in a word; 'The Daily Telegraph' has words up to 10 letters long. Also the number of letters is more ...
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The median for the length of words in 'The Daily Telegraph' is 6 letters long. However, the median length of words in 'The Sun' is 5. There is a difference between them both, which is 1. This shows that 'The Daily Telegraph' uses longer more complex words.
I believe where the mode is the identical in both articles, the range of length in 'The Daily Telegraph' is greater, where 'The Sun' only goes up to 9 letters in a word; 'The Daily Telegraph' has words up to 10 letters long. Also the number of letters is more spread out where in 'The Sun' the words are focused in the lower letter area, for example 3,5 and 6 letters long.
Number of letters
Frequency
Number of letters X frequency
0
0
0
0
0
2
23
46
3
21
63
4
21
84
5
9
45
6
4
24
7
5
35
8
3
24
9
5
45
0
6
60
1
3
33
Frequency tables
Broadsheet paper 'The Daily Telegraph'
Random search
Total = 100
Total = 459
Mean = 4.59
Mode = 2
Median = 5
Frequency table
Tabloid paper the sun
Random search
Number of letters
Frequency
Number of letters X frequency
0
0
0
2
2
2
8
36
3
27
81
4
7
68
5
5
75
6
5
30
7
5
35
8
5
40
9
2
8
0
0
1
3
33
Total = 428
Total = 100
Mean = 4.28
Mode = 3
Median = 5
Comments on the Frequency tables Broadsheet paper 'The Daily Telegraph' Random search and Frequency table Tabloid paper 'The Sun' random search
The total for 'The Daily Telegraph' random search is 459. While the total for 'The Suns' random search is 428. The difference between them is 31 letters. This proves that 'The Sun' uses less detailed and complex words for a longer range of audience. Where as, 'The Daily Telegraph' uses complex sentences.
The median for both newspapers is the same, which is 5. I assumed that the median for 'The Daily Telegraph' would be higher than the median for 'The Sun'. I feel if I tested more words I could of obtained a better result.
The mode for 'The Sun' was 3. However, the mode for 'The Daily Telegraph' was 2. That is a difference of 1. This surprised me, as I thought that 'The Daily Telegraph' mode would be a higher number like 6 or 7. This could again be down to not testing a large enough quantity of words, for example if I investigated 500 words I would of had more of a possibility to obtain very accurate results, or it could of just been the selection of words I just picked.
Comments for the frequency polygons for broadsheet paper 'The Daily Telegraph' and tabloid paper 'The Sun'
This frequency diagram shows more clearly that the mode is 3 for the tabloid paper 'The Sun', as it is the highest point at 23 for the tabloid paper.
This graph clearly shows that words with three letters are the most the popular. The graph at the beginning shows that the majority of words are between 1 - 3 letters long. On the graph, after the words with three letters suggests that fewer words have over three letters. This is quite close to mean word length
Where 'The Sun' is more concentrated at lower letters in the words like 3, it then decreases, very low for longer words, like 10 it is at 0.
'The Daily Telegraph' is below 'The Sun' from 1 to 4 and 6. But it is higher then 'The Sun' on 7 and 7-10. This illustrates that 'The Sun' uses shorter words so more people can understand them; 'The Daily Telegraph' uses longer words for a more complex audience.
Comments for frequency polygons for random search 'The sun' and 'The Daily Telegraph'
By comparing these frequency polygons, I have established that the tabloid has shorter words then the broadsheet. 'The Daily Telegraph', indicates much more variety in word length.
This graph clearly shows that in the tabloid paper the words with three letters are the most the popular.
The mode for 'The Sun's' random selection words is 3 letters long. I can tell this, for the reason being; the highest peak is at 27 words with 3 letters in. For the 'The Daily Telegraph' it is 2, I can tell this as the highest point is at 23 words with 2 letters for 'The Daily Telegraph'.
Conclusion
My prediction is correct. For the reason being that in the conclusion the results suggest that 'The Daily Telegraph' has more letters per word on average than 'The Sun', but this does not mean that this is conclusive.
I believe that Newspapers with a low readability are intended for people who can understand longer words and long sentences. Low readability newspaper articles usually contain words with many syllables.
A greater range of people with varying intellect can understand high readability newspapers articles. Shorter words are put in sentences, which are concise and have words with few syllables, making it in general easier to comprehend
I finally conclude that, word size may not mean that the paper is more profound or easier to read. This assumption I made may be false and invalidate the investigation, therefore my conclusion is not exact and I cannot take it far.
Hypothesis
I have decided to use two newspapers to find out how many pictures in the first ten pages. Also I am going to try and avoid bias by producing a random picture account.
I believe the 'The Daily Telegraph' will have less pictures in the first ten pages than 'The Sun'.
From my previous investigation for 'the length of words in 'The Daily Telegraph' will be longer than the length of words in 'The Sun'. I have established that the two newspapers present the story in different ways; therefore, both newspapers have to be attractive to sell well. To be 'attention grabbing' I feel the layout of the articles is very important. 'The Sun' has used the picture of the girl on the front page, which takes up 80% of the page. The headline is also very bold and eye-catching; the big black writing with a red number 7 (approximately size 100) stands out more than any other pages in the rest of the newspaper. In connection to the layout of 'The Sun', 'The Daily Telegraph' puts this on page 2. 'The Daily Telegraph' also has a smaller picture than 'The Sun'.
I believe this is so, for the reason that different sorts of people read both of these newspapers. I feel 'The Daily Telegraph' tries to targets educated people and readers rapt in financial and political matters. 'The Sun' tries to targets a younger audience that may or may not be highly educated, hence it is called 'The people's paper'.
Frequency tables to show how many pictures in the first 10 pages for Broadsheet paper 'The Daily Telegraph'
Total = 10
Total = 18
Mean = 1.8
Mode = 1
Number of pictures in the first 10 pages
Frequency
Number of pictures X frequency
0
0
0
5
5
2
3
6
3
3
4
4
5
0
0
6
0
0
7
0
0
Frequency tables to show how many pictures in the first 10 pages for Tabloid paper 'The Sun'
Number of pictures in the first 10 pages
Frequency
Number of pictures X frequency
0
0
0
0
2
3
6
3
4
2
4
0
5
5
6
6
7
7
Total = 36
Total = 10
Mean = 3.6
Mode = 3
Comments
You can tell that 'The Sun' uses more pictures then the 'The Daily Telegraph' by looking at the mode. 'The Sun's' mode is 3 and 'The Daily Telegraph' is 1. That is a difference of 2. Also the 'The Daily Telegraph' has a lower mean than 'The Sun' which is 1.8 and 'The Sun' has a mean of 3.6. The difference between them both is 1.8. This shows that the 'The Sun' uses more pictures than 'The Daily Telegraph'.
Frequency table to show the random selection of pictures in 'The Daily Telegraph'
Total = 16
Total = 6
Mode = 1
Number of random pictures
Frequency
Number of pictures X frequency
0
0
0
3
3
2
2
3
2
6
4
0
0
5
0
0
6
0
0
7
0
0
Frequency table to show the random selection of pictures in 'The Sun'
Number of random pictures
Frequency
Number of pictures X frequency
0
0
0
2
0
0
3
3
4
2
8
5
5
6
6
7
0
0
Total = 23
Total = 6
Mode = 4
Comments
You can see that the mode for 'The Daily Telegraph' random search is 1 and that the mode for 'The Sun' is 4. A difference of 3 pictures. From this evidence you can see that 'The Sun' uses more pictures then the 'The Daily Telegraph'.
Comments
We can tell from this pie chart that the mode is 1. We can tell this as the bigger segment is the one that represents three letters in a word.
The smallest segment (colour light pink) represents ?% of the overall pie chart. And the largest segment (dark blue) represents ?% of the overall pie chart. That is a difference of ?%
Comments
We can see from this pie chart that the mode is 3. We can tell this as the bigger segment is the one that represents three letters in a word.
The smallest segment (colour light blue) represents ?% of the overall pie chart. And the largest segment (dark blue) represents ?% of the overall pie chart. That is a difference of ?%
Cumulative frequency table
Broadsheet paper 'The Daily Telegraph'
Total = 10
Mode = 1
Number of pictures in the first 10 pages
Frequency of pictures
Cumulative total
Cumulative frequency
0
0
0
0
5
0+5
5
2
3
3+5
8
3
+8
9
4
+9
0
5
0
0+10
0
6
0
0+10
0
7
0
0+10
0
Cumulative frequency table
Tabloid paper 'The Sun'
Number of pictures in the first 10 pages
Frequency of pictures
Cumulative total
Cumulative frequency
0
0
0
0
0
0+0
0
2
3
0+3
3
3
4
3+4
7
4
0
7+0
7
5
7+1
8
6
8+1
9
7
9+1
0
Total = 10
Mode = 3
Cumulative frequency table for random search
Broadsheet paper 'The Daily Telegraph'
Number of pictures in random selection
Frequency of pictures
Cumulative total
Cumulative frequency
3
+3
4
2
4+2
6
3
2
0+6
6
4
0
0
0
5
0
0
0
6
0
0
0
7
0
0
0
Total = 6
Mode = 1
Cumulative frequency table for random search
Tabloid paper 'The Sun'
Number of pictures in random selection
Frequency of pictures
Cumulative total
Cumulative frequency
+0
2
0
+0
3
+1
2
4
2
2+2
4
5
4+1
5
6
5+1
6
Total = 6
Mode = 4
Comments on the Cumulative frequency tables Broadsheet paper 'The Daily Telegraph' random search and cumulative Frequency table Tabloid paper 'The Sun' random search
The mode is 1 for 'The Daily Telegraph' random search, and 4 for 'The Sun'; this is a small difference of 3. Therefore, this suggests that 'The Sun' encloses more pictures in their newspaper, because 'The Sun' tries to targets a younger audience that may or may not be highly educated, hence it is called 'The people's paper'.
Comments
The cumulative frequency graph shows that 'The Sun has a larger range by 0.25 as its range is 2 and 'The Daily Telegraph' range is 1.75 this shows that the sun has more pictures overall then 'The Daily Telegraph, as it has to appeal to a larger range of audience.
The median for the sun is 1 and the median for 'The Daily Telegraph is 0.5 this shows that 'The Sun' has a larger number of pictures per page then 'The Daily Telegraph.
The upper quartile range is higher from 'The Sun'. 'The Daily Telegraph' has an upper quartile of 4.5 and 'The Sun has 2.25.
The lower quartile is 2.5 for 'The Daily Telegraph and 0.54 for 'The Sun'. This suggests that 'The Daily Telegraph has less pictures on average than 'The Sun', however this is only from a small selection of the paper.
Comments
The cumulative frequency graph shows that 'The Daily Telegraph inter-quartile range is smaller then 'The Sun's'. 'The Sun's' inter-quartile range is 3.2 and 'The Daily Telegraph inter-quartile range is 1.5. The difference between them is 1.7. This shows that 'The Sun' has more pictures in their newspaper.
The median for 'The Sun' is 2.3 that's 1.5 more then 'The Daily Telegraph' median, which is 1. This shows that 'The Sun' has more pictures per page then 'The Daily Telegraph'.
The upper quartile range for 'The Sun' is 5 and for 'The Daily Telegraph' it is 2, this is a difference of 3 between the upper quartile ranges.
The lower quartile for 'The Sun' is 1.8 and 0.5 for 'The Daily Telegraph'. This shows a difference between, which is 1.3.
Therefore these results suggest that my hypothesis is correct, that there will be more pictures in 'The Sun' then 'The daily Telegraph'.
Cumulative frequency table
Broadsheet paper 'The Daily Telegraph'
Total = 100
Mode = 3
Number of letters
Frequency of words
Cumulative total
Cumulative frequency
4
4+0
4
2
6
4+16
20
3
9
6+19
39
4
5
39+15
54
5
1
54+11
65
6
1
65+11
76
7
8
76+8
84
8
6
84+6
90
9
8
90+8
98
0
2
2+98
00
Cumulative frequency table
Tabloid paper 'The Sun'
Number of letters
Frequency of pictures
Cumulative total
Cumulative frequency
2
2
2
2
4
4+2
6
3
23
23+16
39
4
5
39+15
54
5
5
54+15
69
6
5
69+15
86
7
8
86+8
94
8
2
94+2
96
9
4
96+4
00
0
0
0
0
Total = 100
Mode = 3
Cumulative frequency table
Broadsheet paper 'The Daily Telegraph' random search
Total = 100
Mode = 2
Number of letters
Frequency of words
Cumulative total
Cumulative frequency
0
0+0
0
2
23
0+23
23
3
21
23+21
44
4
21
21+44
65
5
9
65+9
74
6
4
74+4
78
7
5
78+5
83
8
3
83+3
86
9
5
86+5
91
0
6
91+6
97
1
3
97+3
00
Cumulative frequency table
Tabloid paper 'The Sun' random search
Number of letters
Frequency of pictures
Cumulative total
Cumulative frequency
2
0+2
2
2
8
2+18
20
3
27
20+27
47
4
7
47+17
64
5
5
5+64
79
6
5
5+79
84
7
5
5+84
89
8
5
5+89
94
9
2
2+94
96
0
+96
97
1
3
3+97
00
Total = 100
Mode = 3
Comments
The cumulative frequency graph shows that the range for 'The Daily Telegraph ' random search is 3.2, where 'The Sun's' range is 2.6. This is a difference of 0.6
The median for 'The Sun' is 3.1; for 'The Daily Telegraph's' median is 3.3.
The upper quartile range is higher from 'The Daily Telegraph'. 'The Daily Telegraph' has an upper quartile of 5.3 and 'The Sun' has 4.7 this is a difference of 0.6.
The lower quartile is 2.1 for 'The Daily Telegraph and 2.2 for. This implies that 'The Daily Telegraph has a smaller amount of pictures on average than 'The Sun', however this is only from a small range of the paper.
Comments
This cumulative frequency graph shows that 'The daily Telegraph's' range is bigger than 'The sun's', where 'The Sun's' range is 3 'The Daily Telegraph' range is 3.75, this shows that 'The Sun' uses a larger range of pictures in the first ten pages of their paper.
The median of both papers is the same, which is 3.7 showing that they both use the same amount of letters. This could how ever be through the lack of words tested.
The inter-quartile range is similar though; the daily telegraph has an inter-quartile range of? Compared to the sun, which is?
The upper quartile range is higher from the daily telegraph. The daily telegraph has an upper quartile of 6 and the sun has 5.4. The lower quartile is 2.25 for the daily telegraph and 2.4 for the sun. This suggests that the daily telegraph has more pictures on average than the sun, however this is only from a small section of the paper.
