I write like:

[DetachedRetina]

http://iwl.me/

This is a link that analyzes your writing. I think it does a pretty decent job. I analyzed several bits of my writing and got somewhat consistent results. Then I analyzed others' writing and got different results, so at least the test is consistent.

Also I analyzed a piece I wrote a while back just after I had finished reading "The Catcher In The Rye" and it told me I write like J.D. Salinger which makes sense.

Mostly it gave me Gertrude Stein, an author I thoroughly dislike reading and don't really understand, so I guess that makes sense too.

Anyways, you guys might find this fun.

 

[snafupants]

My initial result was David Foster Wallace (INFJ). I pretty arbitrarily pasted a swath of notes into the doodad. I repeated this process and received Issac Asimov (INTJ) in return.

 

[DetachedRetina]

I love both those guys! At least your posts on here don't strike me as very Foster Wallace-ish
Of course I know posts on here are probably indicative of nothing. I like your quote by Fry btw.

 

[snafupants]

I love both those guys! At least your posts on here don't strike me as very Foster Wallace-ish
Of course I know posts on here are probably indicative of nothing. I like your quote by Fry btw.

Yeah Stephen is a good egg, an egghead too. There's an entertaining YouTube clip in which he basically shoots the breeze and philosophizes for half an hour. I watched that a few nights ago; the clip is marketed as this psychological unified field theory but the pervasive theme is perhaps living ethically in unethical times, which is a more reasonable rhetorical constraint. Regarding Wallace, perhaps we can blame the doodad then. Then again, Faulkner, the best writer I can come up with offhandedly, wrote pretty colloquially in letters to friends. One's style and flair is maybe epitomized in journals or serious writing intended for publication or something.

 

[Oedipus]

I got Chuck Palahniuk with a piece of fiction I wrote, David Foster Wallace for a piece of "personal writing", the first discursive Essay I tried got Stephen King, and the second got Cory Doctorow.

 

[Minuend]

George Orwell.

Amusing, but I doubt accurate

 

[xbox]

I got David Foster Wallace for one piece of informational writing

Cory Doctorow for an opinion piece.

 

[DetachedRetina]

Hmmm... Maybe this website is a little too consistent. I wonder how big the database of authors is. Or maybe we all just write like relatively recent authors because... we're relatively recent

 

[MissQuote]

Here is another fun tool for one to either analyze themselves with, or to help with getting the "voice" of characters right in dialogue, or if your narrator is supposed to be a certain sex, in fiction writing.

http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php

 

[Minuend]

Sure.

Female Score: 2852
Male Score: 2676

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

 

[MissQuote]

With that gender genie thing, anytime I have put a piece of my writing into it where I was making a grand effort to talk about emotions in a way that didn't come off halting it said the author was male.

I thought that was funny.

 

[Cheeseumpuffs]

Essay for my English class got me H.P. Lovecraft

Other miscellaneous stuff got me:
Neil Gaiman
Cory Doctorow
Arthur Clarke
P.G. Wodehouse

My English Essay got:
Female Score: 628
Male Score: 2207

 

[psion]

I got Ursula K. Le Guin, from whom I have not read any works, but she is a science fiction / fantasy writer of some note apparently. I also got Chuck Palahnuik.

For the Gender Genie, I received these results:

Female Score: 335
Male Score: 779

Female Score: 248
Male Score: 181

So... I am both?

 

[Oedipus]

Everything I entered into the Gender Genie got male.

 

[Sanctum]

Arthur Clarke- INTJ
and male

 

[Sosekopp]

Douglas Adams and Mario Puzo. The Godfather's Guide to the Galaxy?

 

[DetachedRetina]

^HAHAHA

 

[Meer]

The last time I tried this, I got Robert Louis Stevenson.

 

[Valgaar]

I'm an INFJ.

Got David Foster Wallace for my more personal writings and Isaac Asimov for my critical/analytical writings.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

Submitted a bunch of samples of things I wrote on here and for the university paper. Got:

Dan Brown 3/5
H. P. Lovecraft 1/5
Edgar Allen Poe 1/5

 

[Cheeseumpuffs]

Everything I entered into the Gender Genie got male.

Heh. Heh.

..........You're a man....

 

[Beholder]

I got female in the gender genie :/ and a whole bunch of different authors

 

[Words]

Very inconsistent. I received different results for every piece of writing I inputted. Clarke, Brown, Wallace, Poe, Lovecraft, Orwell, Doctorow and some other authors I can't remember. The only multiple return was Clarke, which only appeared twice.

 

[Minuend]

Maybe it's you that is inconsistent D:

 

[kantor1003]

I ran a couple of texts through the gender analysis tool and it mostly resulted in male with one or two exceptions including my latest post depicting my love for Tamagotchi's where the female score was pretty overwhelming at 401 to 192 points.

 

[DetachedRetina]

^ That is very interesting... I wonder how this gender engine works.

 

[DetachedRetina]

Oh well I regret ever posting the test, which is bogus. I just posted about half of "Metamorphosis." And Kafka apparently writes a lot like James Joyce. And a female

Although maybe James Joyce was the translator!

 

[C.J_Finn]

I entered in the first part of my short story thing that I'm working on and it told me that I write like J.D Salinger. So yeah, I'll be giving up on writing now.

 

[DetachedRetina]

I entered in the first part of my short story thing that I'm working on and it told me that I write like J.D Salinger. So yeah, I'll be giving up on writing now.

What's wrong with Salinger?

Also the test is pretty stupid it turns out.

 

[Polaris]

I submitted 10 samples, some from here, some from private correspondence and some uni papers:

Ursula K. Le Guin
Mary Shelley
David Foster Wallace
Jack London
H.P. Lovecraft
Arthur Clarke
Arthur Clarke
Arthur Clarke
H.P. Lovecraft
Ursula K. Le Guin

The Arthur Clarke result are all from the same long uni paper I wrote on Indigenous history, society and politics, just different snippets.

It makes me wonder if this analysing tool goes off content, more than actual style, which would have been far more interesting.

 

[DetachedRetina]

That would be impressive. And yes, far more interesting.

I just don't see how they could actually get a computer to determine the content of a paper. I would think it would be relatively easy to cross reference your vocabulary, comma usage, sentence lengths and stuff like that with a database and use some sort of multi-objective matching to determine who you "write like."

They probably do reference how often you use certain words. For instance if you said indigenous a lot of times, I think it would be "easy" at least conceptually, to write a program to count up all the times you said indigenous, all the times Arthur Clarke said indigenous, all the times David Foster Wallace said indigenous, etc. If you said indigenous a number of times most similar to Arthur Clarke, I could see that factoring into the "Who I Write Like" score.

So that may hint at analyzing content.

I dunno... maybe someone better with statistics or programming would have a clue.

 

[DetachedRetina]

The Arthur Clarke result are all from the same long uni paper I wrote on Indigenous history, society and politics, just different snippets.

It makes me wonder if this analysing tool goes off content, more than actual style, which would have been far more interesting.

That would be impressive. And yes, far more interesting.

I just don't see how they could actually get a computer to determine the content of a paper. I would think it would be relatively easy to cross reference your vocabulary, comma usage, sentence lengths and stuff like that with a database and use some sort of multi-objective matching to determine who you "write like."

They probably do reference how often you use certain words. For instance if you said indigenous a lot of times, I think it would be "easy" at least conceptually, to write a program to count up all the times you said indigenous, all the times Arthur Clarke said indigenous, all the times David Foster Wallace said indigenous, etc. If you said indigenous a number of times most similar to Arthur Clarke, I could see that factoring into the "Who I Write Like" score.

So that may hint at analyzing content.

I dunno... maybe someone better with statistics or programming would have a clue.

 

[DetachedRetina]

er... How did that happen?

 

[C.J_Finn]

What's wrong with Salinger?

Also the test is pretty stupid it turns out.

It's just that he created the one literary character that I hate with every fiber of my being. Even though I've read the book several times now I think Holden just ruins it for me.

So the reason for that is that since the story that I'm working on is based around one central character and that thing told me that I'm like Salinger, so this is kind of insulting based on the fact that both have the narrative that's based around a single person and it was compared by this to Salinger.


Wow, I rambled on way too much here...

Edit:

Well, this is interesting. I entered in the second "chapter" of my story and it said that I write like Cory Doctorow, but when I did the third part it said Salinger again.O_o

 

[C.J_Finn]

That would be impressive. And yes, far more interesting.

I just don't see how they could actually get a computer to determine the content of a paper. I would think it would be relatively easy to cross reference your vocabulary, comma usage, sentence lengths and stuff like that with a database and use some sort of multi-objective matching to determine who you "write like."

They probably do reference how often you use certain words. For instance if you said indigenous a lot of times, I think it would be "easy" at least conceptually, to write a program to count up all the times you said indigenous, all the times Arthur Clarke said indigenous, all the times David Foster Wallace said indigenous, etc. If you said indigenous a number of times most similar to Arthur Clarke, I could see that factoring into the "Who I Write Like" score.

So that may hint at analyzing content.

I dunno... maybe someone better with statistics or programming would have a clue.

I don't really know how this works. My result leads me to think that it doesn't have much to do with the actual structure (as far as what you said about grammar related things) since my short story isn't structured like Catcher in the Rye in any way (imo).

 

[MissQuote]

Someone go copy and paste some Salinger into it and see if it comes up Salinger.

 

[Polaris]

That would be impressive. And yes, far more interesting.

I just don't see how they could actually get a computer to determine the content of a paper. I would think it would be relatively easy to cross reference your vocabulary, comma usage, sentence lengths and stuff like that with a database and use some sort of multi-objective matching to determine who you "write like."

They probably do reference how often you use certain words. For instance if you said indigenous a lot of times, I think it would be "easy" at least conceptually, to write a program to count up all the times you said indigenous, all the times Arthur Clarke said indigenous, all the times David Foster Wallace said indigenous, etc. If you said indigenous a number of times most similar to Arthur Clarke, I could see that factoring into the "Who I Write Like" score.

So that may hint at analyzing content.

I dunno... maybe someone better with statistics or programming would have a clue.

Hmm, yes I have no programming background either, I was just speculating. I thought it may be content-based as I got the Ursula Le Guin result from a couple of snippets I wrote that had quite a few futuristic/sci-fi type references.
Also the paper on Indigenous people had a lot of futuristic-type references in it. The H.P. Lovecraft connection is less obvious, perhaps it was my use of somewhat contemptuous language towards humanity (from private correspondence)......

The Jack London result came from a paper on the biology and ecology of a species of bird....Jack London did write novels with animal protagonists.

Hm, I dunno either.

 

[MissQuote]

I put some chunks from the first chapter of Catcher in the Rye into it and it came up Salinger.

I am a little disappointed actually. heh.

Also, I think Salinger was a bit of a genius with the way he manipulated the craft of writing. I think his works need to be taken all as one cohesive work, but that you can start anywhere on, on any book, and it all inter plays with each other so you end up with a story that is unique to your own experience of where you started n it, where you went next and where you ended up eventually with it.. So, The Catcher in the Rye is just one part, different from the other parts, that fits into a bigger picture.

Holden was a bit of a whiny twit though.

And, I haven't read all of his stuff yet, either.

When I read Raise High the Roofbeam Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction it wasn't until the very end, in the last couple of pages, that there was one small paragraph that had such a deep impact, that echoed and resonated in that way that makes you ache, but without the enire rambling book before it it would have meant nothing. Would have just been another plain paragraph in another story.

Maybe this entire opinion of mine is just because of where I was headspace wise when I read his works that I have, too.

 

[DetachedRetina]

Someone go copy and paste some Salinger into it and see if it comes up Salinger.

I did this with Kafka and it came up James Joyce.

 

[DetachedRetina]

Holden was a bit of a whiny twit though.

Hahaha best summary of Catcher in the Rye ever.

 

[DetachedRetina]

Well, this is interesting. I entered in the second "chapter" of my story and it said that I write like Cory Doctorow, but when I did the third part it said Salinger again.O_o

There seems to be a small sample of authors drawn from in this program. I wouldn't worry, I copy-pasted a Stephen King bit too, and got David Foster Wallace.

 

[C.J_Finn]

Holden was a bit of a whiny twit though.

That isn't even the problem I have with Holden. My problem is that he's such a massive hypocrite that it makes my stomach turn. I can deal with him being whiny.


Also, what do you guys think about the theory that Holden was suffering from PTSD? I only ask because I read somewhere online that his behavior lines up with some PTSD symptoms and it seems to make sense with some of the things that goes on in his mind throughout the book.

 

[C.J_Finn]

There seems to be a small sample of authors drawn from in this program. I wouldn't worry, I copy-pasted a Stephen King bit too, and got David Foster Wallace.

That's a bit weird.

 

[DetachedRetina]

Hmm... Perhaps Salinger had some PTSD and it bled through a bit?

 

[Stoic Beverage]

I'm pasting bits from a journal I keep, and I'm consistently getting P. G. Wodehouse.
I'm utterly giddy at the fact.

 

[Teohrn]

Just for the fun of it, I copy-pasted the information given on that site and it got H.P Lovecraft. I copy-pasted some H.P Lovecraft excerpts and got Arthur Clarke, Daniel Defoe, Dan Brown and H.P Lovecraft (who would have thought? H.P Lovecraft writes like H.P Lovecraft!).

Most of the H.P Lovecraft excerpts got Dan Brown, therefore Dan Brown writes more like H.P Lovecraft than H.P Lovecraft writes like H.P Lovecraft.

 

[Puffy]

I keep getting H.P. Lovecraft as well. I'm not sure that this is the case, personally.

I am a male writer apparently, though.

I'm not sure why certain words such as "the" are classified as male though.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

I have not received the same author twice.

 

[C.J_Finn]

Hmm... Perhaps Salinger had some PTSD and it bled through a bit?

It's possible. I recall reading somewhere that he served in WW1, so he might have had PTSD, but I can't jump to that conclusion without something to actually back it up.

 

[DetachedRetina]

Yeah, it just seems a stretch for me to think that Salinger would intentionally give Holden PTSD. Was PTSD even really well defined at the time?