Work Sets

Work sets allow you to combine one or more disparate works or work parts for the purpose of further analysis. For example, you can combine all of Shakespeare's tragedies into a work set, and all of the comedies into another work set. You can compare the frequencies of words in each work set to look for interesting vocabulary differences between words used in the tragedies as opposed to the comedies.

You can also break out each of the individual Canterbury Tales into its work set. This allows you to analyze relationships between individual tales.

You can select all of the prologues in Shakespeare's works and place them in a work set. This allows you to compare the vocabulary in the prologues with those of Shakespeare as a whole. Or you could create another work set of all the work parts except the prologues, and compare these with the work set containing just the prologues.

In a sense, you can look at a work set as a custom corpus. You can mark the work sets you create as private (only for your use) or public (available for others to use but not modify). You can use a work set as one of the search criteria when you search for words to ensure the resulting words come from works and work parts in the work set.

There is no restriction on how you may combine works and work parts in a work set. You can combine all the works in Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Spenser into a work set you might call "English works." You can even combine works from Early Greek Epic with English works, but this is unlikely to prove useful.

Here are some examples of work sets you might create.

1. Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 1
2. Hamlet, Act 5
3. Hamlet
4. Shakespeare's Tragedies
5. All of Shakespeare
6. Shakespeare's Histories and the Faerie Queene

Word Sets

Word sets allow you to save words which match specified criteria from one or more works, work parts, or corpora. For example, you can create a word set containing all the words spoken by males in Shakespeare's tragedies, and another containing all the words spoken by females in Shakespeare's tragedies. This allows you to compare the vocabulary of male and female speakers. As with work sets, you can mark the word sets you create as private (only for your use) or public (available for others to use but not modify).

You can use a word set as one of the search criteria when you search for words to limit the results to a subset of the words in the word set.

Here are some examples of word sets you might create.

1. Narrated words in Homer
2. Spoken words in Homer
3. Words spoken by male characters in Shakespearean comedy
4. Words spoken by Ophelia in verse

Word Set versus Work Set

Both work sets and word sets may be used as analysis and reference texts in WordHoard analysis procedures. You should exercise common sense in constructing and analyzing word and work sets. A work set comprising Shakespeares Histories and the Faerie Queene is probably not very useful. Comparing Ophelia's verse with Homeric narration is certainly pointless. You can do it and obtain statistically correct, if meaningless, results.

How do you choose between creating a work set and creating a word set? WordHoard handles work sets much more efficiently than word sets, so you should create work sets when you want all the words in a specified set of works or work parts. Only create a word set when you want to analyze some but not all of the words in a specified set of works or work parts.