Word clouds are an interesting way to get a broad insight on the trends of a text or the data that could arise from it. Usually applied to interviews, documents, or other mediums of text, the diagram showcases the most often reoccurring words from the largest (most frequent) to the smallest (least frequent). As for the question of how accurate the representation of the data truly is through word clouds or tag clouds, remains to be seen. To see this for myself, I put Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of Silver Blaze” through two word cloud programs, Voyant and Tagxedo. Before I layout what the general premise of the story is, it might be more interesting to see how good of a job word clouds do in “giving the whole picture” of the story.

Here’s the first from Voyant,

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For my word cloud project, I decided to use the Sherlock Holmes story The Man with the Twisted Lip.

I used the program Voyant to create my first word cloud, which I ultimately wasn’t happy with. While it was easy to use, the program isn’t very customizable – as far as I could tell, I couldn’t change the font, color, or shape of the cloud. The color scheme isn’t aesthetically pleasing, and the generic Impact font leaves quite a bit to be desired (in my very humble opinion). There isn’t a uniqueness to any of the clouds produced by this tool, which definitely does not make it my favorite.

For my second word cloud, I used Tagxedo, which I found far superior. The program features a number of varying color schemes and fonts and a large array of shapes to choose from (everything from a snowman to the United Kingdom). While a word cloud is still clearly an informative tool, it is one that draws interest for its aesthetic value.

The two processes yielded similar results; for example, three of the most prominent words were “Holmes,” “man,” and “St.” Many of the most popular words were predictable, as they carried the themes of the story. All three parts of Neville St. Clair’s name appear in the clouds, as he is the supposed victim in the mystery. “Window” is large in both, as the window of a bedroom factors largely into the story.

I find the fairly prominent “face” is most interesting: although the title of the story clearly indicates a part of the face (‘the Twisted Lip’), there isn’t much mention of it throughout the story. Of course, the face of a suspect in the crime proves to be a deciding factor in the case, but its importance is only revealed at the end of the short story.

Overall, I think word clouds (when created well) are an interesting, visually appealing means of presenting the themes of a body of text – and, to be honest, I would never have thought before to test one with a story.

For the word cloud assignment I used two different word cloud tools to generate images based off of Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Speckled Band. This was honestly my favorite Sherlock Holmes story I read as a kid and I was excited to see the story in a new light using these tools. For the first image I used Wordle to generate a word cloud.

I have to admit, I really loved using this site. Not only was it extremely easy to figure out, but I loved the way this word cloud looks. I’m a fan of a more sleek, professional style so this image really interested me. Unsurprisingly “Holmes” is the most used word in the story, but I was intrigued by the focus on titles of people rather then their names. Furthermore, clearly the room played a large role within the story. I was surprised not to see “Speckled” or “band” in larger roles within the story since not only are they the title, but they’re the main facts of the story. Overall I really enjoyed this website and I’ll definitely be using this again.

For the second image I used Tagxedo to create a second word cloud. I have to be honest, I really hated thiswebsite. It seemed incredibly outdated and unprofessional,  one example being that it featured font titles named “Avril Lavigne.”I just found it difficult to use and childish. The final image disappointed me, I feel as though it looks like something a fifth grader made in art class half-heartedly. Overall, I felt as though Tagxedo was not helpful in creating a decent word cloud that was visually appealing. For the word cloud itself, I was surprised to see the word “sister” larger in this image, as I honestly felt as though the two word clouds would give the same words higher preference. This word cloud focused much more on the scenery and setting rather than other aspects of the story. Overall, I found this activity enjoyable and interesting, and it’s something I would definitely do again in my own free time.