Comparing the Length of Words in Newspapers and Magazines: An Empirical Study - Essay Example

Comparing the Length of Words in Newspapers and Magazines: An Empirical Study The current paper aims to investigate whether there is a significant difference in the length of words found in UK newspapers versus those found in magazines. To carry out this analysis, 100-word excerpts from a UK newspaper and magazine were taken, respectively. The length of the words in each excerpt was encoded and analysed using MS Excel. The following were the hypotheses tested: Null Hypothesis: There is no significant difference in the length of words found in newspapers and magazines. That is, the mean length of words in newspapers is not statistically different from the mean length of words in magazines. Ho : µNewspapers = µ Magazines On the other hand, the alternative hypothesis is as follows: Alternative Hypothesis: There is a significant difference in the length of words found in newspapers and magazines. The mean length of words in newspapers is statistically greater compared to the mean length of words in magazines. Ho : µNewspapers > µ Magazines Results The following are the raw data, showing the length of words culled from The Wire Magazine and from the Daily Mirror. The excerpts from which the data were yielded are shown in Appendices A and B. Word Number Magazine (length of words) Newspaper (length of words) 1 2 3 2 3 6 3 5 2 4 3 4 5 9 3 6 3 7 7 4 2 8 9 7 9 6 6 10 5 3 11 2 4 12 4 10 13 5 2 14 4 1 15 4 7 16 5 7 17 9 4 18 2 3 19 5 2 20 5 7 21 3 8 22 5 3 23 8 4 24 2 6 25 3 2 26 7 5 27 12 3 28 4 5 29 2 3 30 5 2 31 3 5 32 5 2 33 5 6 34 10 4 35 8 6 36 4 3 37 4 9 38 5 2 39 5 3 40 3 6 41 4 2 42 6 4 43 4 4 44 4 4 45 6 7 46 5 2 47 3 3 48 4 4 49 4 2 50 2 6 51 4 7 52 2 4 53 3 9 54 4 1 55 2 3 56 3 10 57 4 4 58 9 3 59 8 4 60 4 3 61 4 2 62 7 6 63 3 3 64 3 4 65 2 9 66 3 2 67 4 2 68 4 2 69 7 9 70 3 5 71 2 3 72 1 10 73 8 2 74 10 11 75 9 4 76 4 3 77 1 5 78 4 7 79 4 3 80 2 8 81 5 3 82 8 5 83 4 6 84 4 7 85 7 2 86 8 3 87 2 4 88 3 5 89 5 3 90 2 2 91 3 11 92 5 5 93 2 3 94 9 5 95 9 5 96 2 9 97 7 2 98 5 10 99 4 2 100 4 2 Table 1. Descriptive statistics: Length of words in magazine. Mean 4.65 Standard Error 0.23 Median 4.00 Mode 4.00 Standard Deviation 2.32 Sample Variance 5.38 Kurtosis 0.32 Skewness 0.93 Range 11.00 Minimum 1.00 Maximum 12.00 Sum 465.00 Count 100.00 The mean length of words for the magazine is 4.65, with a standard deviation of 2.32. The median is 4.00, and the most frequently occurring word length is also 4.00. The range is 11.00, with the shortest word having one character, and the longest with 12. There are a total of 100 entries for this sample. Figure 1. Histogram for magazine word length. Table 2. Cumulative percentage distribution for magazine word length. Bin Frequency Cumulative % 1 2 2.00% 2 15 17.00% 3 16 33.00% 4 26 59.00% 5 17 76.00% 7 3 79.00% 8 5 84.00% 9 6 90.00% 10 7 97.00% 11 2 99.00% More 1 100.00% The cumulative percentage distribution for magazine word length shows that more than half of the words (59%) found in a magazine are shorter than 4 characters. 90% are shorter than 9 characters while almost all at 99% are not more than 11 characters in length. Table 3. Descriptive statistics: Length of words in newspaper. Mean 4.57 Standard Error 0.25 Median 4.00 Mode 3.00 Standard Deviation 2.50 Sample Variance 6.23 Kurtosis -0.10 Skewness 0.87 Range 10.00 Minimum 1.00 Maximum 11.00 Sum 457.00 Count 100.00 On the other hand, the average length of words in a newspaper is 4.57, with a standard deviation of 2.50. The median is 4.0 and the most frequently occurring word length is 3.0. The shortest word has only 1 character and the longest has 11 characters. There are also a total of 100 words for the newspaper sample. Table 4. Cumulative percentage distribution for newspaper word length. Bin Frequency Cumulative % 1 2 2.00% 2 21 23.00% 3 21 44.00% 4 15 59.00% 5 10 69.00% 6 9 78.00% 7 9 87.00% 8 2 89.00% 9 5 94.00% 10 4 98.00% More 2 100.00% Figure 2. Histogram for newspaper word length. The cumulative percentage distribution for newspaper word length shows that more than half of the words (59%) found in a magazine are shorter than 4 characters. Almost 90% (89%) are shorter than 8 characters while almost all at 98% are not more than 10 characters. T-test for Two Independent Samples Using the t-test for two independent samples, the researcher determined if there is a significant difference in the means of a newspaper and a magazine. The following are the results of the test: Table 5. T-test for comparing mean length of words.   Magazine Newspaper Mean 4.65 4.57 Variance 5.38 6.23 Observations 100.00 100.00 Pooled Variance 5.80 Hypothesized Mean Difference 0.00 df 198.00 t Stat 0.23 P(T Read More