This is an investigation to compare the average length of words from two different newspapers, i.e. The Guardian and The Sun. One newspaper has to be a broadsheet and the other has to be a tabloid.

There is a range of 12.

The range is the difference between the largest number and the lowest.

3 - 1 = 12.

The median is 4.

The median is the middle value. 300 / 2 = 150.

The mean is 5.

Total of items divided by number of items. 1438 / 300 = 4.7

The mode is 3.

The mode is the most common number.

Total number of letters = 1438

Amount x word length

This graph shows how the length of words are spread out. It shows that the total amount of letters used most is three. It also shows that all words are mainly kept between the 2 and 6 letter margin.

The reading age for this would be;

206.835 - (1.015 x 23) - (84.6 x 1.5) = 97.39

23 = 300 / 13

.5 = 454 / 300

The reading age is quite low because it is very close to 100 which means young children could understand it. The very high lettered words are extreme values because they occur very rarely.

The standard deviation is:

This version "S = square root of, ?(x-m)² / n" is the most revealing about the real meaning of standard deviation, because it makes you 1) find the deviation (x - m), between each data entry and the mean, and then 2) find the 'average' of these deviations, by adding them up (?) and dividing by the number, n. The processes of squaring and square rooting in amongst it all means it isn't quite the true "average" deviation, so we call it the "standard deviation" instead.

I will be using the formula s² = ?f(x²) / n - m²

(13x1²)+(41x2²)+(66x3²)+(41x4²)+(33x5²)+(39x6²)+(28x7²)+(26x8²)+(11x9²)+(2x10²)+(2x11²)+(2x12²)+(1x13²) / 300 - 25 = 3

V3= 1.7

Standard deviation = 2.

The Guardian;

Word Length

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Amount

5

48

62

59

33

21

23

0

2

4

6

5

0

0

This table shows the lengths of 300 words from The Guardian.

The range is 15.

The median is 4.

The mean is 5.

The mode is 3.

Total number of letters = 1458

For the standard deviation I will be using the same formula as above:

(5x1²)+(48x2²)+(62x3²)+(59x4²)+(33x5²)+(21x6²)+(23x7²)+(10x8²)+(12x9²)+(14x10²)+(6x11²)+(5x12²)+(1x13²)+(1x16²) / 300 - 25 = 6

V6 = 2.4

Standard deviation is 2.

This is a graph showing the word length of the same article as The Sun but in the Guardian. You can see there are more larger length words than in the previous chart. The reading age for this would be;

206.835 - (1.015 x 27) - ( 84.6 x 1.63) = 41.53

27 = 300/11

.63 = 489/300

41.53 is a low score which means that is for a much older audience than the sun.

Comparison

The documents used in both investigations is about the war in Iraq. From the information displayed above and what is about to be in a table underneath, shows that The Guardian is for a more intellectual audience.

Sun

Guardian

Sun or Guardian

Range

2

5

G

Mean

7

3

S

Mode

3

3

D

Median

4

4

D

Total letters

438

458

G

Reading age

97.39

41.53

G

Standard Deviation

2

2

D

This table shows that The Guardian is a more intellectual newspaper and proves that my theory was correct because I believed The Guardian would be set at a higher level of intelligence than the sun.

Aim 2

In this investigation I will be comparing two Sunday newspapers i.e. News Of The World (Tabloid) and Sunday Mail (Broadsheet).

Hypothesis

The two newspapers I am comparing for this hypothesis are The Sunday Times (Broadsheet) and The News Of The World (Tabloid). I believe The Sunday Times will have a larger mean word length than The News Of The World because it is a larger paper which means it goes more in depth about what it is discussing.

Statistics

I have used 300 words from each newspaper.

The Sunday Times:

Word Length

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

0

1

2

3

Amount

4

63

46

42

32

29

32

7

3

7

3

The range is 12.

The mode is 2.

The median is 4.

The mean is 5.

Total number of letters = 1371

The chart below shows haw the word lengths are spread out. As you can see it is spread out but there is a lot of two lettered words.

The standard deviation for this would be:

(14x1²)+(63x2²)+(46x3²)+(42x4²)+(32x5²)+(29x6²)+(32x7²)+(17x8²)+(13x9²)+(7x10²)+(3x11²)+(1x12²)+(1x13²) / 300 - 25 = 2.6

V2.6 = 1.6

Standard deviation is 2.

The reading age for this document is:

206.835 - (1.015 x 25) - (84.6 x 1.67) = 40.178

This is a very low reading age so it would mean it is a hard document to read.

News of the World:

Word Length

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

0

1

2

Amount

9

45

53

57

35

29

27

23

5

5

The range is 11.

The mode is 3.

The median is 4.

The mean is 5.

Total number of letters = 1416.

The reading age for this document is:

206.835 - (1.015 x 20) - (84.6 x 1.6) = 51.175

This chart shows the spread of word length.

The standard deviation is:

(9x1²)+(45x2²)+(53x3²)+(57x4²)+(35x5²)+(26x6²)+(27x7²)+(23x8²)+(15x9²)+(5x10²)+(1x11²)+(1x12²) / 300 -25 = 2.2

V2.2 = 1.4

Standard deviation is 1.

Comparison

News of the World

The Sunday Times

World or Times

Range

1

2

T

Mean

5

5

D

Mode

3

2

W

Median

4

4

D

Total letters

416

371

W

Reading age

51.175

40.178

T

Standard deviation

2

W

This table shows that the News Of The World is for more intellectual people. I was wrong in my theory. There are different circumstances that could have made the results end up the way they are. The stories used can be different and because they are from the beginning of the story some of them could be more of an introduction then an in depth review.

Overall Conclusion

The statistics shown above show many varying results. Now I am going to do a final comparison to see which newspaper is for older and more intellectual people, using all four of the samples:

The Sun

Guardian

News of the World

The Sunday Times

Sun, Guardian, Times, World

Range

2

5

1

2

G

Mean

7

3

5

5

S

Mode

3

3

3

2

S,G,W

Median

4

4

4

4

D

Total letters

438

458

416

371

G

Reading age

97.39

41.53

51.175

40.178

T

Standard deviation

2

2

2

W

Overall the most intellectually challenging newspaper is The Guardian. The table shows that the newspapers are the same in some ways but they can differ a lot.

Sean Toohey 11Tr

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