Coursework – Descriiptive Statistics
Introduction
In the Term 1, for the Statistics coursework, you are required to use the statistical techniques that you have learnt so far to analyse some data that you will collect.
Scenario
Professor John Samuels in the English Literature department at the University of London believes that there is a difference between the types of language used in different types of books. In particular, he is interested to see if the language used in fictional books differs to that used in non-fictional books. To find out if there is a difference, it is necessary to compare the lengths of words and the lengths of sentences used in these books.
What to Do
You will need to choose two books to compare.
The first book should be fiction text. Choose a book written for adults. You should choose a modern work rather than a classic written many years ago. The second book needs to be non-fiction. Do not choose a text book as these tend to be full of technical terms and possibly even equations! Again choose a non-fiction book that would be read by an adult and that has been written recently.
You will investigate two ideas.
The first is that the length of words is different in a non-fiction book compared to a fiction book. The second is that the length of sentences is different between the two types of books.
Word Length
1. Choose 50 words at random throughout each book.
2. Count the number of letters in each word.
3. Represent this data using a frequency distribution table and a back-to-back stem and leaf diagram.
4. Use this data to work out mode, mean, median, variance and standard deviation for each book.
5. Compare the statistics that you have produced for each book and discuss whether or not there is a clear difference between them. For example, is there a big difference between the mean number of letters in a word in the non-fiction book and the fiction book? What does the stem and leaf diagram show? What differences are noticeable?
Sentence Length
1. Choose 50 sentences at random throughout each book.
2. Count the number of words in each sentence.
3. Represent this data using a grouped frequency distribution.
4. Use this data to work out (or estimate) the modal class, mean, median, variance and standard deviation for each book.
5. Compare the statistics that you have produced for each book and discuss whether or not there is a clear difference between them. For example, is there a big difference between the mean number of words in a sentence in the non-fiction book and the fiction book? Do the grouped frequency distributions look the same? What differences are noticeable?
Notes
All written work should be Word processed. Calculations may be hand-written. All working calculations should be shown. MS Excel must not be used for any calculations.
• All of the project must be your own work – you will be required to sign an originality sheet.
• Late submissions will be treated in accordance with the University Policy.
• Submissions by email or to the IFP Office will not be accepted.
• All work must be submitted as a word document, no exceptions (no .pages files!)
You will need to submit on Turnitin as instructed on the Assessment page on Black Board.
The Report
You need to write a report to describe what you have done. The report should consist of three sections.
• Introduction
• Analysis and Interpretation
• Conclusion
In the Introduction section, you should show your data and explain:
• what it is you are trying to find out
• how or where you have obtained your data
• what statistical techniques you are going to use
• why these statistical techniques are appropriate for this project.
In the Analysis and Interpretation section, you will carry out the analysis on the data and interpret your results. You must include all the calculations that you perform (show full working).
In the Conclusion section, you should summarise the main points that you have found out and discuss your findings in relation to the purpose that you stated in the Introduction section. In this case you should state whether there are differences between the text and what those differences are. You should also point out what similarities there were. Finally, you should say whether overall the language in the two texts differs substantially. The report should be no longer than 1250 words (a 10% penalty will be applied per 50 words over the limit you go).
Marking
This project accounts for 5% of the marks of the IF0ISS module.
Marks are given out of 60 and are awarded as follows:
• 10 marks for the Introduction section of the report
• 36 marks for the Analysis and Interpretation section of the report
• 4 marks for the Conclusions section of the report
• 10 marks for overall standard of the submission.
