Yesterday I stumbled upon this clever little website - I Write Like. All you have to do is input a few paragraphs of your writing (a blog post, an e-mail, a term paper, whatever), and it analyzes it for syntax and word choice, and then tells you what famous author your writing style is most similar too! Pretty cool, right? Especially for an English major like me.
The first text I entered was my post "On Women Being Friends with Women," and it popped out Gloria Steinem, famed feminist. I quickly realized that was probably because that post used the word "woman" about 40 times...ha! I decided to try again, and entered a few more blog posts and a couple of long e-mails. I got a few different authors, but definitely saw a pattern emerging with two names that popped up over and over: Cory Doctorow and David Foster Wallace.
Both are contemporary authors, but I've never read anything by either one! Now I've got a couple things to add to my "to-read" list, and who knows - maybe as I read, it will sound so familiar, it will be like I wrote it myself!
Go to I Write Like to analyze yourself, and let me know your results!
I might just have to test out my downton abbey email.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, I already did...
DeleteCame back Vladimir Nabakov, who wrote Lolita!
I mean, I always knew I was famous.
DeleteDavid Foster Wallace on all 3 of my papers!
ReplyDelete