MODE
The mode is the number of letters per word that occurs most often.
A word with 3&4 letters occurs 21 times in the article.
RANGE
The range is the least number of words subtracted from the greatest amount of letters per word.
12-1= 11
The range is 11
THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER
The averages for the number of letters per word in The Guardian Newspaper are:
MEAN
FORMULA: Add all the numbers together to obtain a total divide by the total frequency of letters.
6+38+54+92+95+40+45+20+33= 423
423/100= 4.23
MEDIAN
The Median is the middle number when the numbers are arranged in order.
100/2= 50 6+19+18+23= 66
The 50th number appears in the frequency table at 4
MODE
The mode is the number of letters per word that occurs most often.
A word with 4 letters occurs 23 times in the article.
RANGE
The range is the least number of words subtracted from the greatest amount of letters per word.
11-1= 10
The range is 10
FREQUENCY POLYGONS
NUMBER OF LETTERS PER WORD CONTAINED IN THE ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER
Frequency Polygons are marked from the MID POINT
NUMBER OF LETTERS PER WORD CONTAINED IN THE ARTICLE IN THE SUN NEWSPAPER
Frequency Polygons are marked from the MID POINT
CUMULATIVE FREQUENCY BOX PLOTS
THE GUARDIAN
BOX PLOTS
MEDIAN: ½ up the scale
100/2= 50
50th number= 4
LOWER QUARTILE: ¼ way up the scale
100/4= 25
25th number= 2
UPPER QUARTILE: ¾ way up the scale
50+25= 75
75th number is 5
THE SUN NEWSPAPER
BOX PLOTS
MEDIAN: ½ up the scale
100/2= 50
50th number= 4
LOWER QUARTILE: ¼ way up the scale
100/4= 25
25th number= 3
UPPER QUARTILE: ¾ way up the scale
50+25= 75
75th number is 6
CONCLUSION
Using the data gathered my hypothesis was proven wrong.
Using the averages I had expected The Guardian to have the largest number of letters per word than The Sun but the mean average proved this wrong. The Sun has a larger Mean average of 4.5 letters per word than 3.37 letters per word in The Guardian making a difference of 1.13 letters per word. Although The Guardian has a higher Modal number of letters at 4 letters occurring 23 times through out the article. The Guardian has the smaller range of 10 showing the more consistent the figures.
However this is only proven in the sample 100 words I chose to conduct my investigation upon. Reading further into the article The Guardian has on average longer words than The Sun newspaper. If I had conducted my investigation on these words the outcome would have proven my hypothesis correct. The sample words were taken mostly from interviews with people involved in the incident report on so were closely matched in both papers, although I had removed words that were identical in both papers such as place names and the names of any people involved.
If I were to carry out this investigation again I would use a different sample of words making sure not to include interviews, written numbers or anything that is repeated in both samples.
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
TOTAL AMOUNT OF WORDS PER SENTENCE IN THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER
Total number of sentences 25
The averages for the number of words per sentence in The Guardian Newspaper are:
MEAN
FORMULA: Add all the numbers together to obtain a total divide by the total frequency of letters.
555/25= 22.2
RANGE
The range is the least number of words subtracted from the greatest amount of letters per word.
41-11=
The range is 30
TOTAL AMOUNT OF WORDS PER SENTENCE IN THE SUN NEWSPAPER
Total number of sentences 23
The averages for the number of words per sentence in The Sun Newspaper are:
MEAN
FORMULA: Add all the numbers together to obtain a total divide by the total frequency of letters.
481/23= 20.9
RANGE
The range is the least number of words subtracted from the greatest amount of letters per word.
48-5= 43
The range is 43
STEM AND LEAF DIAGRAM TO SHOW THE NUMBER OF WORDS PER SENTENCE IN THE GUARDIAN AND THE SUN NEWSPAPERS
THE SUN THE GUARDIAN
5, 8, 9, 9 0
1, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8 1 1, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 9
1, 3, 5, 7 2 0, 0, 1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7
0, 3, 3, 4 3 1, 1, 7
0, 8 4 1
KEY
1 3 = 13
CONCLUSION
Upon further investigation my hypothesis that The Guardian Newspaper would have longer sentences than The Sun was proven correct.
With in the article I chose to conduct my investigation with in The Guardian and The Sun newspapers the former had the greatest amount of sentences at 25 to the latter of 23. Using this I found that The Guardian had the higher MEAN average of 22.2 words per sentence to The Suns 20.9 words per sentence. The Sun had a higher RANGE of 43 to The Guardians 30. This is shown in the diagram labelled
READING AGE
Using the Fog (Frequency of Gobbledegook) Readability Index, I calculated the reading age of the two newspapers I selected.
THE GUARDIAN
Complete sentences = 25
The number of words in the sentences= 100
Average sentence length = 100/5= 20
Number of words with 3 or more syllables= 6
READING AGE
20+6= 26
26*0.4= 10.4
10.4+5= 15.4
THE SUN
Complete sentences = 5
The number of words in the sentences= 85
Average sentence length = 85/5= 17
Number of words with 3 or more syllables= 7
READING AGE
17+7= 24
24*0.4= 9.6
9.6+5= 14.6
This shows that there is not much difference in the reading ages of both the papers but this could be because the sentences I chose to compare were mainly in the form of quotes taken from people being interviewed. Had I chosen a different set of sentences the outcome would have been different.
