Dmdh winter 2015 session #2

Winter 2015: Session #2
Programming on the Whiteboard
(Sarah Kremen-Hicks & Brian Gutierrez)

Previously, at DMDH...
• The work of creating usable data
• Forms that this data might take:
• markup language
• spreadsheets

Workshop #2
• Caveat Curator (challenges of working with
data)
• Programming on the whiteboard, i.e.,
conceptualizing the specific steps that you
need to take to accomplish your goals

Why this focus on data?
• Understanding your data, and your
intended actions, is a key skill for working
with any programming language or
platform.
• This is true whether you are the
programmer or whether you are working
with professional programmers.

Programming languages
are like human
languages in that they
both have phrases,
patterns, and rules.

Programming languages
are unlike human
languages in that they
aren’t for communicating
with people.

They are also unlike human
languages in that every
programming utterance
does something, i.e., causes
an action to occur.

You can get used to
patterns – even
unfamiliar ones.

The shift is in getting
used to thinking in
terms of every single
action.

Our subject matter today is all
actions that you’ll need to
think about before you work
with...

Image: Josh Lee, @wtrsld, via Twitter, January 2014.

Even when you’re just
experimenting, you need to
prep your data.

You may know your dataset
in detail already, from your
research -- but your
computer is concerned with
different levels of detail.

Becoming aware of those levels
of detail is not only helpful for
your project ideas...

...it’s also a useful skill for
working with programming
languages.
(where a stray /> or ; can break your program/website)

Data only works if your
computer can read it.

But my data is just text!
(Isn’t that easy?)

(Remember, your computer is
fairly stupid).

Formatted text
is often full of
text your
computer can’t
parse correctly.

The┘re┘sÜlt ís that yoÜr te┘xt
might come┘ oÜt looking
like┘this
whe┘n yoÜ ope┘n it in a
programming e┘nvironme┘nt.

So you need to
convert it to
plain text.
(without any of the fancy details
encoded in MS Word fonts.)

But even that can produce
unexpected errors.

Maybe you want to work with
sailing data and ports of call:

The ship you’re interested in
leaves the Ivory Coast for St.
Helena...

But when you create your map,
you get this:

The latitude/longitude
coordinate is the significant
datum.

The city name is just the
human-readable component.

Each datum needs to be
unique.

Figuring out what sort of
unique configuration will
work best involves at
least some
experimentation.

To experiment effectively, you’ll
want to keep careful records.

If you develop categories of
information, you’ll want to
keep a record of what each
category means, and what
its limits are.

Cleaning and structuring your
data is a foundation issue that
changes, depending on the
available format of your data.

What if your data is
crowdsourced?

You can require a particular
format for submissions

You can even put
programmatic limits on the
formats available for
submission

But in the end, you’re still going
to need to scrub and/or
format.

This is true even for data
from supposedly reputable
sources, like government or
media organizations.

Example: Doctor WhoVillains
dataset
http://tinyurl.com/doctorwhovil
lains

But it’s absolutely necessary.

Working with multiple types of
data:
GIS and the Spatial Turn

GIS technology has paved the
way for the analyzing qualitative
data associated with cultural
experiences

“A good map is worth a thousand words,
cartographers say, and they are right: because
it produces a thousand words: it raises doubts,
ideas. It poses new questions, and forces you
to look for new answers.”
(Moretti 1998, 3–4)

Literary texts are filled with
subjective spatial data: an
author or character's
articulation of geographically
located dwellings, urban and
rural landscapes, as well as
performance spaces

Project: Mapping William
Wordsworth's Conspicuous
Consumption in The Prelude
(Brian R. Gutierrez)

Objective: to map the visual culture
events referenced in Wordsworth’s
autobiographical poem The Prelude (as
well as the ones not referenced)

Problem to solve: Prove that literary
galleries, specifically Joseph Boydell’s
“Shakespeare Gallery” shaped the
dramaturgical choices in the only play
written by Wordsworth. He reads
Shakespeare not through a personal copy
of the play, but through the visual and
performative texts at that time

Data: place-names, indirect
references, and all non-
referenced visual cultural
events

Access to data: Project
Gutenberg, digital archive of
British newspapers and
periodicals

What to do with that data?
Map it!!

First data set:
Literary spatial articulations

Wordsworth mentions these following place
names and references:
"Oh wonderous power of words, how sweet they are
/ According to the meaning which they bring-- /
Vauxhall and Ranelagh, I then had heard / Of your green
groves and wilderness of lamps, /Your gorgeous ladies,
fairy cataracts,And pageant fireworks" (119-125)
"Half-rural Sadler's Wells" (267)

First, I need to know what and
where these places were in
order to identify them as
spatial data
Ex:Vauxhall and Ranelagh

Second, if I'm interested in
visual cultural experiences, I
need to identify what kind of
event occurred there: galley
play, etc.

Third, how would I access the data?
Answer: place-names in a book are not
under any copyright.
However, if I wanted to include sections
from the text when a viewer would click
on that place name then I would have to
think about copyright, but it's on PG, so
that's covered.

Fourth, I would have to locate any indirect
reference to visual cultural phenomena.
Ex:Wordsworth mentions two actresses by
name Mary Robinson and Sarah Siddons.
Since I cannot map a person, I need to
investigate which plays they were in and at which
theaters during that moment of his life (it's an
autobiography)

Fifth, I need to research what special
events were occurring at other places
he mentions. For that, I look to The
Times (newspapers) and various
periodicals.

Sixth, because I going to create
a map, using ArcGIS, I need to
put my data in an excel
spreadsheet so that it can be
read by the program.

What is the relationship
between the data?

Analyze the qualitative data
Humanist skill=
Dhumanist skill

Programming on the
whiteboard involves looking at
the categories of information,
and thinking about how they
interact.

Categories
• Place names
• Poetic lines
• Genre of visual/cultural event
• Spatial data (latitude/longitude)

Return to the source of original
data—the literary text—to
examine how the author is
describing these phenomena

Benefits of ArcGIS
• It allows the overlay of historical maps
• Trainings were available and accessible
(through DHSI and UW courses)
• As a software program,ArcGIS is
established enough to be considered robust
• Available through the UW software suite

Disadvantages of ArcGIS
• Available only for PCs
• Proprietary file format (even if input data is
open-access, the end result is not)
• Available only on an annual subscription
model (and prohibitively expensive for
scholars without campus-granted access)

In Franco Moretti’s Atlas of the
European Novel 1800-1900
(1998), he calls for a “literary
geography,” predicated on the
creation of “readerly maps”
and the use of those maps as
analytical tools.

Caveats?
The pursuit of mapping data
may exclude complex social
spaces (e.g., gender domestic
environments)

Caveats?
Cartographical representations
should not be divorced from
their primary texts

Project:Visualizing Prosody
(Sarah Kremen-Hicks)
x / |x /|xx / | x / |x /
Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day
/ x | / x | x / | x / | x /
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun

Marking up a poem for
metrical scansion is encoding it
with data.
What can a computer do with
that data?

Computers are good at
counting things – like iambs.

Is it possible to predict
deviations from a metrical
norm based on author or lyric
classification?

Will authors show a tendency
for particular types of metrical
substitution?

Prepping the Data
• For proof of concept, start with one author
(Alfred, LordTennyson)
• Get Tennyson’s poems from Project
Gutenberg
• Hand-mark representative poems for
prosody

Programming on the Whiteboard
What should the
computer do?

Computer tasks• Count feet per line
• Recognize | as a foot boundary
• Recognize carriage return as a line boundary
• Supply foot boundaries at beginning/end of
lines
• Count the number of areas contained within
foot boundaries for each line

These steps involve recognizing
each metrical foot as units that
contain particular accentual-
syllabic data.
x / |x /|xx / | x / |x /
Sir WalterVivian all a summer's day

Computer tasks, cont’d.
• Identify the most common number of feet
per line
• Supply a report on lines (by number) that
deviate
• Calculate rate of deviation/adherence
• Mode = paradigm

After recognizing the foot as a
unit, the computer can calculate
what patterns of data each foot
contains.

Computer tasks, cont’d.
• Identify the most common foot type
• Identify markings within foot boundaries
• Compare markings to foot dictionary to
identify type

These tasks identify each line
as a unit composed of one or
more feet.
x / |x /|xx / | x / |x /
Sir WalterVivian all a summer's day
(iambic pentameter with third foot anapestic
substitution)

Still more computing tasks!
• Identify the most common foot type within
a poem
• Supply a report on feet (by line and foot
number) that deviate
• Calculate rate of deviation/adherence
• Mode = paradigm

Just as the feet contain
patterns, the lines contain
patterns that can be analyzed
as well.

Still more computing tasks!
• Report on types of deviations arranged by
most to least common
• Information should include location
(line/foot number), as well as prevalence of
substitution type

Deviations and their placement
within each line and each poem
should display certain patterns
unique to each author (I hope!)

Current status: I’m investigating
using the Natural Language
Toolkit to tokenize each foot;
and to establish syllables, feet,
and lines as a unique hierarchy.

ApplicableValues
•Iterative development
•Failure as valuable
•Collaboration

If you are thinking about your
data, and the tasks that you
need to accomplish, then it’s
easier to determine what sort
of language or platform your
project needs.

There are countless tutorials,
online courses, etc., for almost
any programming language or
platform.
(We’re giving you a cheat sheet,
too; and http://www.dmdh.org is
your friend. So is Google.)

Learning them can be a slow
process, especially at first.

However, knowing what tasks
you’re working towards makes
it easier to understand the
purpose of the introductory
lessons.

It’s also easy to think about
how the first rules you learn
for any language or platform
might affect your goals.

For this activity, we
recommend that you pair up,
or form small groups to work
together.

Group Activity
• What do you need to do with your data?
• What units might that data exist in?
• What categories do you need to create?
• What relationships need to exist between
the units and categories?

Upcoming Workshops!
• Crash Course on R: Feb 4, 12:30-2:00
(location TBD)
• SpringWorkshops on Project Ideation and
Development:April 11th and April 25th

DMDH content is developed by Paige Morgan,
Sarah Kremen-Hicks, and Brian Gutierrez, with
generous support from the Simpson Center for
the Humanities at the University of Washington.
Content is available under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial
3.0 Unported License.
Please contact Sarah at sarahkh@uw.edu with
questions.

Dmdh winter 2015 session #2

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