Practice question · Sort into groups
Sort each task by whether computation or a human reader does it better.
Groups: Computation wins · Human reader wins
- Deciding which pattern is worth pursuing
- Finding anomalies in a mass no one could eyeball
- Explaining why an anomaly exists
- Word frequencies across 50,000 texts
- Judging what a passage means
- Linking names across censuses and registers
Hints
- The machine finds where to look but not what it found.
- The loop runs both ways between the two approaches.
Show the answer
Computation wins: Word frequencies across 50,000 texts, Linking names across censuses and registers, Finding anomalies in a mass no one could eyeball
Human reader wins: Explaining why an anomaly exists, Judging what a passage means, Deciding which pattern is worth pursuing
Why
The machine finds where to look; it does not know what it found. The productive loop runs both ways: distant reading finds the anomaly, close reading explains it, the explanation suggests the next thing to count.
Practise Digital Humanities and Big Data
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
More questions on Digital Humanities and Big Data
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