Homework 0-1

Due: January 29, 2013, 2:25 pm

“On the Bias”

Answer the following questions about the Geoffrey Nunberg's “On the Bias” (http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/bias.html).

  1. What is the result of Nunberg's analysis?
  2. What assumptions did Nunberg make? Does he justify any assumptions? If so, how?
  3. Name two potential criticisms of his analysis.
  4. This article compares the number of times individuals are associated with the terms “conservative” or “liberal” in newspapers. Try making your own hypothesis:
    1. Give two other terms to count in newspapers.
    2. Pose a testable hypothesis about their relationship.

    Here's an example from Green Eggs and Ham. If we count the number occurrences of the phrases “green eggs” and “ham”, I claim that they occur the same number of times.

Save the answers in a text file called YourName_HW0-1.txt, where YourName should be replaced with your first and last name. Send it to to cs0931handin@cs.brown.edu with the subject line “HW0-1”.