Analysis of word length:
Daily Mail:
Mean= Total of Fx ÷ Total of Frequency
Mean= 440÷100
Mean=4.4 words
Range= largest length of word- shortest length of word
Range= 11-1
Range=10
Mode= most occurring length of word
Mode= 4
Median= 3.2 (shown by cumulative frequency graph later on)
Independent:
Mean= Total of Fx ÷ Total of Frequency
Mean= 415÷100
Mean=4.15 words
Range= largest length of word- shortest length of word
Range= 9-1
Range=8
Mode= most occurring length of word
Mode= 2 and 3
Median= 3.2 (shown by cumulative frequency graph later on)
The Sun:
Mean= Total of Fx ÷ Total of Frequency
Mean= 413÷100
Mean=4.13 words
Range= largest length of word- shortest length of word
Range= 10-1
Range=9
Mode= most occurring length of word
Mode= 2
Median= 3.2 (shown by cumulative frequency graph later on)
Summary of papers’ mean, range, mode and median:
Observation:
As you can see from this table, there is a slight difference in the average word length from the three papers. In my hypothesis I stated that the compact paper (Independent) would have a longer average word length than both the quality and popular papers. My results shown in the table show the opposite as the quality paper (Daily Mail) has a larger word length average. I also predicted that the ‘more sophisticated’ paper would have a larger range, mode and median. Again I was ‘proven’ wrong as it shows the quality paper to have a larger range and mode than both the popular and compact papers. The Quality paper also shows a larger median than both the other papers. I think my hypothesis wasn’t backed because my sample wasn’t large enough. To back up my hypothesis and highlight a clear difference in my results; I will re do the ‘practical’ and retrieve a larger sample of words. Maybe this will enable me to get the results I need to support my hypothesis made earlier on.