Analysing Sentences
Bar Charts for Sentence Length
Mean Sentence Length
Calculating the Mean
Comparing Proportions
|
|
Sentence Length
Another way of looking at the way
authors write is to count the number of words used in each
sentence. Some authors use long sentences, others prefer short
ones.
Remember a sentence ends with a
full stop (.), question mark (?) or exclamation mark (!) and the
next sentence will begin with a capital letter, so this sentence
is thirty words long.
Analysing Sentences
Look again at passage A on page
R1. The 30 sentences contain the following number of words:
| 13, |
8, |
14, |
35, |
22, |
22, |
13, |
35, |
22, |
2, |
34, |
| 6, |
10, |
32, |
24, |
19, |
13, |
13, |
9, |
15, |
4, |
4, |
| 2, |
7, |
11, |
11, |
7, |
4, |
5, |
5, |
|
|
|
The shortest sentence contained
two words, and the longest sentence contained 35 words.
Table 3 summarizes these results.
You will need page R3.
| a |
Write
the title of the passage used and the name of the author
at the top of the page. |
| Class interval
Sentence length (number of words) |
Tally marks |
Number of sentences |
| 1-5 |
  |
7 |
| 6-10 |
 |
6 |
| 11-15 |
 |
8 |
| 16-20 |
|
1 |
| 21-25 |
 |
4 |
| 26-30 |
|
0 |
| 31-35 |
|
4 |
| |
Total |
30 |
Table 3 - Sentence lengths in
passage A
| b |
Make
a list of the number of words in each sentence of your
passage, recording the numbers in the space on page R3. |
| c |
Use
tally marks to record the sentence lengths in Table 6 on
page R3. |
You mav need to add some extra
rows if you have any sentences containing more than 45 words.
| d |
Total
the tally marks and complete the column headed 'Number
of sentences'. |
The range for sentence length in
passage A is (35-2) words = 33 words.
| e |
Find
the range for your passage. |
Most of the sentences in passage A
had less than 15 words, the group with the most sentences was
11-15 words.
We say the MODAL CLASS is 11-15
words per sentence.
| f |
Find
the modal class for your passage. |
| g |
Compare
your table, range and modal class with those that passage
A, and write two or three sentences describing what you
notice. |
Bar Charts for Sentence Length
It may help to compare the
passages if vou draw a bar chart of the sentence lengths.
Figure 2 is a bar chart of the
results given in Table 3. Notice that each bar corresponds to one
row of Table 3.
Figure 2 - Bar chart of
sentence lengths, passage A
| a |
Using
the axes of Figure 4 on page R3, draw a bar chart of your
results. |
You may need to add extra bars if
you have any sentences with more than 45 words in them.
The highest bar in Figure 2 is for
the interval 11 - 15 words. This was the modal class we found in
Section C1.
| b |
Check
that your highest bar corresponds to your modal class. |
| c |
Compare
your bar chart (Figure 4) with Figure 2 and write a
sentence to describe what you notice. |
Mean Sentence Length
It is possible to work out the
mean number of words per sentence.
For passage A:
Total number of words = 421
Total number of sentences = 30
| Mean number
of words per sentence |
= 421/30
words
= 14.0 words |
| a |
Find
the total number of words used in your passage. |
A calculator may help.
| b |
Copy
and complete:
Total number of words = _____
The number of sentences = 30
| Mean
number of words per sentence |
=
_____/30 words
= _____ words |
|
| c |
Compare
your mean with the 14.0 words for passage A, and write a
sentence stating what you notice. |
*Calculating the Mean Again
The mean for passage A can also be
calculated from the summarized information in Table 3. This is
shown in Table 4.
| Class interval
Sentence length (number of words) |
Number of sentences |
Midpoint of class
interval |
Number of words |
| 1-5 |
7 |
3 |
7 x 3 = 21 |
| 6-10 |
6 |
8 |
6 x 8 = 48 |
| 11-15 |
8 |
13 |
104 |
| 16-20 |
1 |
18 |
18 |
| 21-25 |
4 |
23 |
92 |
| 26-30 |
0 |
28 |
0 |
| 31-35 |
4 |
33 |
132 |
| Total |
30 |
- |
415 |
Table 4 - Sentence lengths in
passage A
Mean = 415/30
words = 13.8 words
| a |
Why
is this mean (13.8 words) different from the answer in
Section C3 (14.0 words)? |
| b |
Which
is the more accurate answer? Why? |
| c |
When
would a mean have to be calculated from a table? |
| d |
Add
two extra columns to Table 6 on page R3.
Label the first one 'Midpoint of class interval'. |
Most of the numbers in this column
will be the same as in Table 4. The last entries may, be
different if you have extra rows at the end.
Label the last column 'Number of
words'.
| e |
Calculate
the figures for this column and find the total. |
| f |
Calculate
the mean. |
| g |
Compare
this mean with your answer to question C3b. Write a
sentence stating anything you notice about the two
answers. |
Comparing Proportions
Sometimes it is the proportion of
long or short sentences that gives us the best clue to
authorship.
In passage A:
Proportion of sentences with 26
words or more is 4/30
Proportion of sentences with 5
words or less is 7/30
| a |
Copy
and complete for your passage:
The proportion of sentences with 26 words or more
is _____
The proportion of sentences with 5 words or less
is _____. |
| b |
Compare
your proportions with those of passage A.
Write a sentence describing what you notice. |
| c |
What
could affect the proportion of short sentences in a
passage? |
|
