First Assignment

Choose one of the options below and write a three-page essay in response. Your essay should be at least two and a half pages in length and should not exceed four pages. Use double-space lineation, a 12-point Roman font, and one-inch margins on all sides. Your writing is expected to be error-free and up to university standards.

Your essay is expected to have a thesis: a main point that the whole essay attempts to support or prove. The thesis should be based on the data you observe for the terms/phrases you choose. Can you explain the seasonal patterns, the regional differences, the increases/decreases over the decades? What is so interesting about the data? A strong essay will have intelligent reflections on 1) what you have done with the searches and their results, 2) the problems with your conclusions, and 3) opportunities for further work. A strong essay will also result from a sufficiently in-depth examination of the data: usually examining it from various perspectives (such as temporal and regional).

Please attach to your essay printed versions of the graphs/charts that it discusses, if you can. (Charts and graphs do not count towards the page count of the essay.) I will be attempting to recreate all your charts by doing the searches myself: please be precise in your account of your searches and results.

The assignment is due on October 27th. Consult the course outline for further information about late assignments.

A. Google Trends

Select three to five terms that people “google” frequently. Examine the data from Google Trends (www.google.com/trends) for the terms you have selected (using the search box at the top). What conclusions can you come to about people’s frequency in “googling” these terms? You may focus on a temporal perspective and/or a regional perspective, if you wish (and you are free to focus exclusively on, say, the United States or Canada). In choosing your terms, select them from one of two broad categories: marketing or education. For marketing terms, you can choose trademark names or “buzz words” (or other marketing-related terms). For education terms, you can choose discipline names, subjects/topics, institution names, etc. Your essay should include a discussion of the limits of the usefulness of the data from Google Trends.

B. Google Books Ngram Viewer

Select two to four terms or phrases that might be interesting to examine in printed books. Examine the data from Google Books Ngram Viewer (books.google.com/ngrams) for the terms or phrases you have selected. What conclusions can you come to about the use of these terms/phrases over time? Consider comparing the data for the general English corpus against the data for the English Fiction corpus. You can also compare the data for the American English and British English corpora. You can compare the data for the two centuries against data from more specific periods within those two centuries. You are welcome to include results from more advanced search options (such as stemming) in your analysis. Your essay should include a discussion of the limits of the usefulness of the data from the Google Books Ngram Viewer.