Maths coursework: read all about it.

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Maths coursework: read all about it

Introduction:

I am going to do a piece of coursework called read all about it. It is a statistics coursework where I intent to compare the features of a broadsheet newspaper to the features of a tabloid newspaper. Using skills I have learnt in class I am going to try and prove that one has a longer average word length than the other.

Hypothesis:

The average word length is longer in a broadsheet than a tabloid.

Plan:

I am going to buy a tabloid and a broadsheet newspaper from the same day. It is important to buy them from the same day so I can avoid bias. I am going to buy the times and the daily mail and compare the two, there is no specific reason why I chose these newspapers.

        

First I will number the articles in each newspaper, I will ensure I number 50 articles.

        

Using the random button on my calculator to avoid bias, I will look at a particular word in the article. For example, if the calculator displays the number, 0.374 I will look at the third word in the article and count the amount of letters in this word. To avoid bias I will always look at the first number after the decimal point. However if the first number after the decimal point is a zero I will repeat the method until I get a number from 1-9. If the word I am sampling is a name I will repeat the process until I get a word.

        

I will repeat this process for every numbered article in the newspaper and then record my results, I will do this for both the broadsheet and the tabloid.

        

Then I will display my results in a table, using the information in the table I will compile a series of graphs and diagrams to display my results. I intend to make a cumulative frequency graph, a box and whisker diagram, and stem and leaf diagram and also, work out the mean, median, mode and range for both newspapers from these diagrams I will hopefully be able to see which newspaper has a longer average word length.

        

Collecting the number of letters in every word of the newspaper would be too difficult and time consuming. Therefore I am going to need to sample my words. To do this I am going to use the random button on my calculator. I will then be able to take a random word and record my results fairly, avoiding bias. I have done some test runs of my project to make sure I don’t come across any problems. Whilst doing this I realised that if the word I was looking at was a name I would have to select a new word. Also that if the number displayed on my calculator was a zero, I would do it again.

I predict that the broadsheet will have a longer average word length

Data collecting:

Broasheet:

Tabloid:

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*From these tables I can see that the broadsheet has a longer word length to the tabloid. This is not very easy to see however and because of this I will display this information in a clearer form

*From these tables I will now create a cumulative frequency table for both newspapers

Cumulative frequency table:

Broadsheet:

 

MEDIAN: frequency +1  = 50+1 = 25.5

                        2                   2

LOWER QUARTILE: frequency+1 = 50+1 =  13

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