Texts I Used
For this assignment, I compared two Wikipedia articles: one about St. Louis, Missouri, and one about Edwardsville, Illinois. These two places are close to each other, but they are pretty different in size and lifestyle. St. Louis is a big city, while Edwardsville is smaller and more of a college town.
My Question
I wanted to see how the way people write about a big city is different from how they write about a smaller town nearby.
My Hypothesis
Before using Voyant, I thought the two texts would focus on different things. I expected:
- St. Louis would talk more about population, economy, history, and big city features
- Edwardsville would focus more on community, students, and education
I also thought the St. Louis article would be more complex, while Edwardsville would be simpler and more focused.
What I Did
I put both texts into Voyant Tools and looked at things like the word cloud and word trends. This helped me see which words showed up the most and what each text focused on.
What I Found
First, the most common words were different in each text.
- In the St. Louis article, there were a lot of words about the city itself, like population, river, and economy
- In the Edwardsville article, words like “university,” “students,” and “community” showed up a lot
One big thing I noticed is how important Southern Illinois University Edwardsville is in the Edwardsville article. It comes up a lot and seems to be a big part of how the town is described.
Also, the St. Louis article covered way more topics, like transportation, history, and business. Edwardsville stayed more focused on local life and education.
Conclusion
My hypothesis was mostly right. The two places are described very differently, even though they are close to each other. St. Louis is shown as a big, complex city, while Edwardsville is more about community and college life.
Using Voyant made it easier to see these differences because it shows patterns in the words, not just the meaning of the text.
Final Thoughts
This activity helped me understand how different communities are described based on their size and role. It also showed me how useful tools like Voyant can be for quickly spotting patterns in writing.
Ioannis Koupepides