12.0550 authorship attribution problem

Humanist Discussion Group (humanist@kcl.ac.uk)
Tue, 13 Apr 1999 20:49:19 +0100 (BST)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 12, No. 550.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

[1] From: Ken Litkowski <ken@clres.com> (20)
Subject: Re: 12.0548 authorship attribution problem

[2] From: "Norman D. Hinton" <hinton@springnet1.com> (5)
Subject: Re: 12.0548 authorship attribution problem

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 20:48:25 +0100
From: Ken Litkowski <ken@clres.com>
Subject: Re: 12.0548 authorship attribution problem

Humanist Discussion Group wrote:
>
> Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 19:13:35 +0100
> From: Willard McCarty <Willard.McCarty@kcl.ac.uk>
> >
> The following statement of an authorship attribution problem was sent to me
> by a writer in N California who is investigating the subject described
> below. Please send your replies both to Humanist AND to Michael Koepf
> <bigfish1@saber.net>. It sounds like an interesting if very difficult problem.
>

I think my software can make an attempt at this problem. The software
MCCALite can be downloaded directly from my site, but I would very much
like to try it out myself. Please let me know where I can get the
data. Shouldn't take but a couple of hours, assuming that the data are
in ASCII.

Ken

-- 
Ken Litkowski                     TEL.: 301-482-0237
CL Research                       EMAIL: ken@clres.com
9208 Gue Road
Damascus, MD 20872-1025 USA       Home Page: http://www.clres.com

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 20:48:34 +0100 From: "Norman D. Hinton" <hinton@springnet1.com> Subject: Re: 12.0548 authorship attribution problem

The methods for comparing two texts for authorship attribution are of long-standing, fairly well agreed-on, and in my opinion, bizarre and incongruous. They seem based on reasonable principles, but when a study "proves" that _Pearl_ was not written by the author of _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ (as has happened), there is something wrong with the process.

------------------------------------------------------------------------- Humanist Discussion Group Information at <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/> <http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/> =========================================================================