Exploring a Text for Theoretical Foundation
This recipe takes a text and explores its use of theory by using tools such as word list, concordance, and collocation.
This recipe and exercise are available as a PDF download.Ingredients
- An electronic text to which is rich in theoretical discussion
- A List Words Tool such as TAPoR List Words Tool
- A Concordance tool such as the TAPoR Find Words - Concordance Tool
- A Synonym Finding Tool such as WordNet
This recipe is applied to a sample text in Exercise Exploring a Text for Theoretical FoundationSteps
- Prepare Text;
- Log in to TAPoR;
- Generate a word list (sorted by frequency) using the TAPoR List Words Tool;
- Save the results to the Databench
;
- Perform a wildcard search for *ism, and other suffixes suggestive of theory
in the frequency list;
- Explore the words found individually using TAPoR Find Words - Concordance Tool to understand their context;
- Repeat this for all found words;
- Use a antonym finding tool such as WordNet to compile a list of words referring to opposing concepts to those previously found;
- Look for contrary theoretical references using TAPoR Find Words - Concordance Tool for the antonymical references;
Discussion
This technique involves querying for suffixes that suggest that the subject matter is theoretical in nature. Other suffixes that may prove useful could include: istic, sophy, ism, ist, ize, ise, arian, etc. and collocation with the word theory itself.Glossary
- Databench
- The Databench is a temporary workspace where you can store your text analysis results in the TAPoR for further use.
Further approaches
Aggregate collected text for a particular theory and explore it using Recipe 2.Next Steps/Further Information
- List of All Recipes
- Exercise Exploring a Text for Theoretical Foundation
- Help with Particular Tools
- Background on Text Analysis
- Information about the TAPoR Concordance Tool
- Information about the TAPoR List Words Tool