Writing

[coalescent]

According to this, I write like a woman:

Female writers use more pronouns (I, you, she, their, myself), say the program's developers, Moshe Koppel of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, and colleagues. Males prefer words that identify or determine nouns (a, the, that) and words that quantify them (one, two, more).
[...]
These differing styles have previously been called 'informational' and 'involved', respectively.

This sounds like something that should be true according to traditional stereotypes, rather than something that is actually true (I'm tempted to run down my friends list and see what it makes of you all). It's also not clear how much account it takes of the purpose of the writing, or whether it's just (meant to be) limited to fiction - news reports, reviews, press releases and so on all have very clearly defined styles, after all.

In other news, I went swimming last night, for (discounting holiday splashes) the first time in several years. I managed 20 lengths in my hour, then went home and slept like a log. Slept, in fact, through both alarms. As a result, I was nontrivially late for work. Oops. It's not even as though I don't feel tired any more - although it is at least the good kind of tired.

Reading back, I abused parentheses in this entry. I wonder whether that's a male or female thing to do...?

Comments

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

Apparently I'm a bloke. I'm as suprised as anyone.

I did pick a nice long piece that I was proud of for the first trial, so I did it three more times with random articles. Each one typed me as male.

[tizzle-b.livejournal.com]

I've checked six entries of mine;

3 are "smaller" entries which I've made lately (one T3 opinion, one about the heat and one about working).

All of those three were female.

The other three entries tested were from when I was away (so longer, more narrative entries).

Two of these have been male, one female.

Just went and checked my other (I did four) LJ entry from when I was away and that came up female as well.

(First; Melbourne & last "the end" were female - my middle two male).

7 checked and I've got just two male replies.

The funny thing is that I'd probably agree with this as my writing style has been honed by females over the years.

[tizzle-b.livejournal.com]

That comment was brought to you by the unneccesary use of many line breaks.

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

However, if I use articles from another journal I'm called correctly as female. Fascinating.

hahahahaha

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

Short pieces come out as female, longer pieces come out as male.

It's not really telling me what sex I am, now, is it? It also appears to be about 50/50 accurate ...

Still, contentious statements always guarantee wide reporting >:[

Paranthetical use

[applez.livejournal.com]

It's a kind of bodging, so is definitely male. ;-)

By the bye, swimming presents the best sort of fatigue, okay, second-best. All you need is a beach party afterwards. Mmmm...lager and grilled fish...mmmm.

----

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

Apart from one result tagging me as male, everything I put in -- long or short or middling -- gave a female result.

Perhaps the real explanation is that everyone who uses lots of pronouns is just an egotist.

[brassyn.livejournal.com]

On livejournal? Surely not!

hmf

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

I think writing without pronouns is egotistical. You're not just excluding yourself, after all, you're excluding everyone else, too.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Everything I write is female, even the quite techy stuff. On the other hand, I notice that the "Am I right" results show that it's only getting it right half the time.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

I tried it with a passage from my thesis (male; wrong) and a paragraph from a recent LJ entry (female; right). Interesting, since what passes for 'good' scientific writing is presumably more 'male' (ie less touchy-feely), though hardly a scientific test.

It's still holding at about 50-50. So not that good, then. And they should really have specified a minimum and maximum number of lines/words/characters, to be at all scientific.

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

I'm a scientist (barely) and I came out as male.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I put three recent LJ posts through it, and they all came out as female. Then I stuck 3 recent essays through it (using the ones with the least technical language I could find) and all three came out as male. So then I put a couple of short film reviews into it, and they came out male as well. *shrug* When I'm being scientific I'm a bloke, and when I write LJ entries I'm a gal.