[R] R Solves Shakespeare Authorship Question

spencerg spencer.graves at prodsyse.com
Tue Jun 2 02:15:42 CEST 2009


      "loc.gov" lists two books on this topic: 


            * Mosteller and Wallace (1964) Inference and disputed 
authorship, The Federalist (Addison-Wesley)


            * Mosteller and Wallace (1984) Applied Bayesian and 
classical inference : the case of the Federalist papers, 2nd ed. of 
Inference and disputed authorship, The Federalist (Springer) 


      If I needed to do this, I would start by searching R contributed 
packages as follows: 


library(RSiteSearch)
tp <- RSiteSearch.function('text processing')
HTML(tp) # 78 help pages in 45 packages, 9 in XML
most <- RSiteSearch.function('Mosteller')
HTML(most) # 27 help pages in 19 packages
tm <- tp&most
HTML(tm) # nothing


      The empty intersection "tm" indicates that I would have to hunt 
more and perhaps write my own functions to replicate the analyses of 
Mosteller and Wallace.  However, one of the 27 pages identified in the 
search for "Mosteller" is "MWwords" in the "alr3" package, companion to 
Weisberg (2005) Applied Linear Regression, 3rd edition (Wiley).  With 
luck, that package may help me replicate or improve on the Mosteller and 
Wallace tools. 


      Spencer Graves


Bert Gunter wrote:
> As a matter of statistical history that some of you may be unaware of,
> Mosteller and Tukey(I think) published an important paper on a similar topic
> (authorship of the Federalist Papers) about 25-30 years ago. I wonder if
> that was referenced in this one...
>
> Bert Gunter
> Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On
> Behalf Of Stavros Macrakis
> Sent: Monday, June 01, 2009 3:25 PM
> To: p_connolly at slingshot.co.nz
> Cc: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R] R Solves Shakespeare Authorship Question
>
> I don't know why this paper is getting our attention here -- it is just an
> undergraduate student term paper for a computer science course on statistics
> and data mining.
>
>              -s
>
> On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 5:48 PM, <p_connolly at slingshot.co.nz> wrote:
>
>   
>> On Sat, 30-May-2009 at 07:42PM -0700, Arthur Burke wrote:
>>
>> |> Those of you who track applications of R may be interested in the
>> following:
>> |>
>> |> "The purpose of this paper is then to apply modern
>> |> text analysis techniques using the R statistical packege [sic]
>>
>> That's not the only such typo.  I had a very quick skim through the PDF
>> file and spotted half a dozen of them.  Kind of calls into question
>> how reliable the list of words they used was, and thereby the
>> reliability of any conclusion.
>>
>> Either that, or my sense of humour is failing me.
>>
>>
>>
>> |> to compare the works attributed to Shakespeare
>> |> to those of leading alternate candidates such as Sir
>> |> Frances Bacon, Christopher Marlow, and Edward de
>> |> Vere...".
>> |>
>> |>
>>     
> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~datamining/Final.pdf<http://www.cs.dartmouth.ed
> u/%7Edatamining/Final.pdf>
>   
>> |>
>>
>> |> I await the creative use of R to solve other vexing problems in the
>> |> dramatic and performing arts such as the "Third Stooge Problem" and
>> |> whether there is any naughtiness in the Britney Spears song title,
>> |> "If You Seek Amy."
>> --
>>
>> Patrick Connolly
>>
>> ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
>> I have the world`s largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all
>> the beaches of the world ... Perhaps you`ve seen it.  ---Steven Wright
>> ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>
>>     
>
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
>




More information about the R-help mailing list