Compsci 6, Fall 2011, Classwork 1

Name: __________________________   NetID: _____________

Name: __________________________   NetID: _____________

Name: __________________________   NetID: _____________

Problem: Tag Clouds

A Tag Cloud is a visual representation of the content of a certain text in which the larger the word or phrase, the more frequently it appears in the text.

Here are some examples:

• Presidential Speeches
• Most Searched on Words and Phrases By NYTimes.com Readers Over the Past 30 Days
• BC Property Values as a Tag Cloud in The Vancouver Sun on Flickr
• Tag Clouds Gallery: Examples And Good Practices

You can make your own Tag Cloud from any text using TagCrowd

Here are some newer extensions:

• Quintura - tag cloud based search engine
• Wordle - toy for generating “beautiful word clouds”
• Tagline - timeline-based tag clouds (generalization of the first example)
• Word Tree - provides context for words and phrases

Discussion:

1. What is easy to learn from a tag cloud?
2. What is hard to learn from a tag cloud?
3. Talk to your neighbors, how well did the tag cloud represent you?
4. Creating your own tag cloud
   1. How many words are in a file?
   2. How many unique words are in a file?
   3. How many times does a specific word appear in a file?
   4. What exactly is a word?
   5. How would you count the occurrences of each word?
   6. How would you take just the top N words?
5. Other applications of this algorithm besides making tag clouds?