Goal: Identify a pattern of cultural change extending from 200 years ago to today, reflecting the transition into our "modern everyday cognition." Google Ngram provides a basis for analysis of language in several languages and cultures, over millions of books.
Briefly check out next week's reading to see some examples of "culturomics": Exploring patterns of cultural (or "psychological") change over 200 years. Consider how this applies to your own interests. What topic interests you? What kind of language would be used in that topic, that may have changed over so many years? Perhaps you can find some interesting patterns in Google Ngram to explore these. To do so, do the following:
Choose at least 5 words or phrases to explore using Ngram.
Wander into Google Ngram and enter your words and phrases separated with a comma:
http://books.google.com/ngrams
You can enter your 5+ words all together or separately or in groups, whichever is more convenient for visualizing the change. For example, sometimes a word has vastly greater frequency than the others, and it will look as if that one is the only one occurring because the others are so low in frequency that they are near the 0 line. So, make sure to explore different plots to get the best view of your data! To save the plot, use a screen-capture program like http://ctrlq.org/screenshots. If you have a Mac, it's easy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenshot.
Writing 100-200 words as in last week. Submit your writeup and your figure on CROPS.