The size of sample we will both be using is 200 words from the tabloid newspaper and 200 words from the broadsheet newspaper. The method we will be using to collect each set of the first 100 words is to first find 2 similar articles, one article from my tabloid newspaper and one article from Kieran’s broadsheet newspaper. We will both look at and record in our own separate tally charts the lengths of the first 100 words from each article from our newspaper. When obtaining my first 100 words I will only count letters and numbers and I will ignore all other kind of punctuation. For example full stops, commas and hyphens. The reason we are comparing 2 similar articles is to get a fair comparison between them both.
To get the next 2 sets of 100 words we will both use the random button on our calculators in order to pick a random page from our newspapers. In my newspaper, the ‘Daily Mirror’ there is 76 pages. So in my calculator I would type randomx76, this would then give me a random page number from 1 to 76. From the random page picked I will then collect my next 100 words. Problems I could come across whilst randomly picking a page is that if the page selected is an advertisement page, a TV guide, a racing page or crosswords they cannot then be used so I would have to keep using the random button until it selects a suitable page. If on the page selected there is more than one article I would then have to use the random button again to randomly select one of those articles. Once both the page number and the article on that page has been selected I will then obtain my first 100 words from it but this time instead of counting the first 10 words I will count every other word. By using the random button on my calculator to select the page and the article it makes my investigation less bias and makes it more of a fair test.
To process and represent my data I will first of all record my data into 2 separate tally charts. One tally chart will be for the similar article and the other tally chart for the random page. By putting my obtained data into tally charts it makes my work my neat and stores the information together. It is an easy and practical way to store data.
Once my 2 tally charts from my tabloid newspaper are completed I will then get the information Kieran has gained from his broadsheet newspaper and will record it into another tally chart. But this will be a combined tally chart so instead of having 2 tally charts of 100 words each I will have 1 tally chart containing 200 words. This tally chart is my secondary source of data.
Once I have all the required information from both the tabloid and the broadsheet newspapers I will process my data into various different things. First I will put the results in the tally charts into a dual bar chart. Dual bar charts are a mathematical way of comparing data and in this case the data I will be comparing is the length of words in a broadsheet newspaper to the length of words in a tabloid newspaper. After the dual bar chart I will work out the mode, the mean and the range of both the words in the broadsheet newspaper and the words in the tabloid newspaper. By finding the mode it will tell me the most popular length of word, by finding the mean it will tell help me to compare the average length of word and by finding the range it will tell me the distance between the biggest and the smallest word. Then I will do a cumulative frequency diagram. This will help me to find the inter-quartile range and to draw box plots. The cumulative frequency diagram will then be converted into a line graph. This line graph will enable me to find out the median, the upper quartile, the lower quartile and the inter-quartuile range. Finally I will then do 2 box plots. One box plot will be for the tabloid newpaper and the other box plot will be for the broadsheet newspaper. By doing box plots it will help me to compare the distribution of the middle 50% of the data.
Once all of this has been completed I will then start the extension task for my coursework. I will obtain my information for the readers letters from the tabloid newspaper and Kieran will do the same for the broadsheet newspaper. This time instead of finding 200 words we will only find 100. Everything else we will do the same. For example the mode, range and mean, dual bar chart, cumulative frequency, box plots etc.
