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Warning: ridiculously long sentence coming up.
When I first started suggesting to writers and teachers that a good way of checking whether a piece of writing addressed the stated objective, or as a shortcut way of discovering what the piece was about without going to the trouble of actually reading it, or as a sort of executive summary to prime you for the reading experience you were about to enjoy (or endure), would be to use a word cloud, I thought I was being terribly original.
However, I have been reading If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller, by Italo Calvino, and have been disabused of my belief that I am an unsung genius. For in this novel, published in 1979, one of the characters says:
“She explained to me that a suitably programmed computer can read a novel in a few minutes and record the list of all the words contained in the text, in order of frequency. ‘That way I can have an already completed reading at hand,” Lotaria says, “with an incalculable saving of time. What is the reading of a text, in fact, except the recording of certain thematic recurrences, certain insistences of forms and meanings? An electronic reading supplies me with a list of the frequencies, which I have only to glance at to form an idea of the problems the book suggests to my critical study. Naturally, at the highest frequencies the list records countless articles, pronouns, particles, but I don’t pay them any attention. I head straight for the words richest in meaning; they can give me a fairly precise notion of the book.”
This was, of course, long before the existence of word cloud generators. It was also long before the widespread use of computers by “ordinary” people or in school classrooms. That is why I find the passage so extraordinary, because it has so much foresight.
The kind of word frequency analysis Calvino was talking about may be exemplified by this breakdown of my article about Ofsted:
| Order | Unfiltered word count | Occurrences | Percentage |
| 1. | in | 13 | 3.4483 |
| 2. | the | 13 | 3.4483 |
| 3. | to | 12 | 3.1830 |
| 4. | i | 11 | 2.9178 |
| 5. | was | 11 | 2.9178 |
| 6. | that | 10 | 2.6525 |
| 7. | a | 9 | 2.3873 |
| 8. | of | 7 | 1.8568 |
| 9. | and | 7 | 1.8568 |
| 10. | subject | 7 | 1.8568 |
| 11. | so | 6 | 1.5915 |
| 12. | this | 5 | 1.3263 |
| 13. | ofsted | 5 | 1.3263 |
| 14. | have | 5 | 1.3263 |
| 15. | for | 5 | 1.3263 |
| 16. | when | 5 | 1.3263 |
| 17. | an | 4 | 1.0610 |
| 18. | by | 4 | 1.0610 |
| 19. | inspectors | 4 | 1.0610 |
| 20. | are | 4 | 1.0610 |
| 21. | be | 3 | 0.7958 |
| 22. | if | 3 | 0.7958 |
| 23. | it | 3 | 0.7958 |
| 24. | me | 3 | 0.7958 |
| 25. | been | 3 | 0.7958 |
| 26. | it's | 3 | 0.7958 |
| 27. | his | 3 | 0.7958 |
| 28. | what | 3 | 0.7958 |
| 29. | sure | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 30. | as | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 31. | is | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 32. | my | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 33. | secondly | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 34. | person | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 35. | told | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 36. | case | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 37. | good | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 38. | being | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 39. | education | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 40. | really | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 41. | asked | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 42. | head | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 43. | things | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 44. | because | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 45. | used | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 46. | inspections | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 47. | kids' | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 48. | would | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 49. | firstly | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 50. | their | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 51. | knows | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 52. | had | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 53. | how | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 54. | inspector | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 55. | work | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 56. | which | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 57. | computing | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 58. | senior | 2 | 0.5305 |
| 59. | e | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 60. | taught | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 61. | looks | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 62. | at | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 63. | do | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 64. | on | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 65. | us | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 66. | actually | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 67. | inspect | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 68. | technology | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 69. | invested | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 70. | against | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 71. | learning | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 72. | kids | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 73. | tell | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 74. | training | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 75. | newsletter | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 76. | provision | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 77. | knew | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 78. | they | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 79. | them | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 80. | then | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 81. | addressed | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 82. | authority | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 83. | taken | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 84. | colleagues | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 85. | i've | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 86. | trained | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 87. | schools | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 88. | teacher | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 89. | past | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 90. | they're | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 91. | working | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 92. | meeting | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 93. | thought | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 94. | enough | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 95. | encouraged | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 96. | nicely | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 97. | ofsted's | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 98. | ridiculous | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 99. | plus | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 100. | observing | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 101. | pictures | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 102. | they'd | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 103. | like | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 104. | your | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 105. | announced | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 106. | misgivings | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 107. | shelved | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 108. | standards | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 109. | start | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 110. | staff | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 111. | look | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 112. | judged | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 113. | questions | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 114. | surveys | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 115. | formatted | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 116. | adviser | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 117. | myself | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 118. | didn't | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 119. | given | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 120. | reasons | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 121. | mentioned | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 122. | office | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 123. | lessons | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 124. | response | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 125. | make | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 126. | across | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 127. | fairness | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 128. | decades | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 129. | reaction | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 130. | fancy | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 131. | different | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 132. | inserted | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 133. | about | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 134. | benchmark | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 135. | very | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 136. | pretty | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 137. | seriously | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 138. | again | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 139. | english | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 140. | doing | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 141. | idea | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 142. | obvious | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 143. | hands | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 144. | looking | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 145. | much | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 146. | whether | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 147. | anyway | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 148. | could | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 149. | something | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 150. | curriculum | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 151. | means | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 152. | inspection | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 153. | into | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 154. | documents | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 155. | couple | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 156. | ago | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 157. | any | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 158. | ask | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 159. | exercise | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 160. | summaries | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 161. | but | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 162. | can | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 163. | think | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 164. | thing | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 165. | going | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 166. | hardly | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 167. | news | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 168. | mixed | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 169. | i'm | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 170. | wail | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 171. | has | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 172. | measure | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 173. | able | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 174. | ict | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 175. | nice | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 176. | well | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 177. | situation | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 178. | lot | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 179. | someone | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 180. | now | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 181. | one | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 182. | own | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 183. | will | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 184. | put | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 185. | undertaken | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 186. | also | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 187. | say | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 188. | two | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 189. | use | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 190. | computers | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 191. | who | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 192. | why | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 193. | you | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 194. | subjects | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 195. | local | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 196. | acquaintance | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 197. | england | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 198. | side | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 199. | whole | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 200. | just | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 201. | sort | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 202. | since | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 203. | published | 1 | 0.2653 |
| 204. | headings | 1 | 0.2653 |
(Created using an online word frequency analyser.) I find this hard to derive meaning from, which is why the modern version, a word cloud, is so much better in my opinion:
Word cloud, by Terry Freedman
(Generated using WordCloud.) You can see at a glance that the article was about subject inspection, and in particular Computing.
Now you could check students’ essays using a tool like this. For example, in The New DfE Education Technology Strategy: A Textual Analysis I ran the Department for Education’s educational technology strategy through a word cloud generator to see if it really was about educational technology. I discovered that it was, which meant that in theory it was going to be worth my while spending valuable time reading it. (In the event I wished I hadn’t, because it had been written so badly, full of corporate guff which made it virtually unreadable, but that’s another matter.)
In the same way, if you set students an essay, by using a word cloud generator you could check whether they had, broadly speaking, written about what you had asked them to write about. Better still, get them to use themselves as they go along, and certainly before handing it in.
I have done this myself, on occasion, when I’ve been asked to write an article about a subject I’m not overly familiar with. I have found that it’s easy to get carried away and write and write, gradually going off course without quite realising it. A word cloud generator can provide an objective check on whether I am still on target, and imply that you should make adjustments if necessary.
