Hints, tips, and ways of using Search Visualiser

Search Visualiser is useful for various purposes, such as:

• finding relevant documents
• studying patterns across two or more documents
• studying patterns within a single document

Finding relevant documents

You can assess the likely relevance of a document by looking at:

• its size, and how often the keywords appear within it. The document below is 30 squares wide by 25 squares long, so a little over 600 words. The keywords appear over a dozen times, so this document is information-rich and likely to be relevant.
• the distribution of keywords within the document; are they intermingled, implying that they are discussed in relation to each other, or does one keyword only appear in one section of the document, with the other keyword only occurring in a different section?

Studying patterns across documents

The image below shows very different patterns of gendered language between two Shakespeare plays. In the opening section of Midsummer Night’s Dream, there’s an even spread of he and she, whereas in the corresponding section of Macbeth there are only occurrences of he.

Studying patterns within a document

The image below shows mentions of witch (red) and sleep (green) in Macbeth. This reflects thematic structuring within the play. First, witches are the prominent theme; then sleep; then witches and sleep are intermingled; at the end, there are a few scattered mentions of sleep. This pattern is easy to see in the representation below, but much more difficult to detect in the written or spoken play.

Similarly striking patterns are common across different authors and different types of text.