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Found this site... I Write Like... You paste in a paragraph or two of your writing and they tell you which author you write like... I don't consider myself a writer so I expected to get a blank. I didn't. I tried 3 times and got:
David Foster Wallace
Dan Brown (GACK!)
Charles Dickens
Apparently my writing is schizophrenic.
I tried three times also, using three different posts from the same blog (not this one). I write like:
Ursula K. LaGuin
H.P. Lovecraft
David Foster Wallace
(I tried a fourth example, which was a bit shorter so maybe not as representative, and got David Foster Wallace again.)
Don't know what the deal with David Foster Wallace is; either we think (partly) alike, or the test is weirdly biased in some way.
Posted by: Andy | July 17, 2010 at 03:44 PM
I should mention that by "blog posts" I meant comments on another blog, not main posts on mine. As of now I have one blog of my own, with exactly one post on it. Submitting that, I end up as H.P. Lovecraft again. So, if the test is in fact not weirdly biased, I seem to be a cross between H.P. Lovecraft and David Foster Wallace. I'm not sure if I should be flattered or worried...
Posted by: Andy | July 17, 2010 at 03:53 PM
i tried 4 - they really like David Foster Wallace i guess - i got DFW on 2 of my posts, and James Fenimore cooper on the third and James Joyce on another one.
Posted by: almostinfamous | July 17, 2010 at 04:13 PM
aif!!! Good to see you back around here. :)
Andy- you seem to be sci-fi, huh?
And as for your blog... no link?? Do we get to see this one post and watch it bloom into many? Hmmm??
Maybe the test is run by DFW in the afterlife and so he's biased, yes... we'll all sound like him!
Posted by: Jennifer | July 17, 2010 at 04:21 PM
OK, here's the link. (Hope I did it right.) The only reason the blog exists at all is that I took a mini-course (~2 hrs) on blogmaking at the community college where I teach. Some teachers use blogs in their courses (I don't, at least not yet.) I had meant to add to the blog with all kinds of witty and informative follow-up posts, but obviously never got around to it.
Posted by: Andy | July 17, 2010 at 04:39 PM
:( No linkage that I can see.
Everyone has delusions of witty and informative follow-up posts... :)
Posted by: Jennifer | July 17, 2010 at 04:49 PM
You don't? When I click on my name at the bottom I see it. But I'm kind of new at linking; that's why I said "hope I did it right". Here's the URL:
http://www.andyshotair.blogspot.com
Posted by: Andy | July 17, 2010 at 05:00 PM
DOH! Yes, the link was there. I was looking for one in the body of the comment!
Forgive me... it's Saturday.
Posted by: Jennifer | July 17, 2010 at 05:04 PM
Ok, you have officially been added to the blogroll.
Posted by: Jennifer | July 17, 2010 at 05:08 PM
Why thank you! (Of course, now a lot of people will probably click it thinking it's "the" Hot Air. But I guess I'll have to live with that.)
Posted by: Andy | July 17, 2010 at 05:11 PM
Or maybe not...I just Googled and realized that "the" Hot Air is Michelle Malkin's old blog! It'll probably wind up scaring people off.
Posted by: Andy | July 17, 2010 at 05:13 PM
Apparently I write like Kurt Vonnegut AND David Foster Wallace. I was hoping for H. P. Lovecraft but apparently I need moar eldritch.
If the purpose of the website is to advertise a Famous Writers School, the text analysis doesn't have to be particularly sophisticated
Posted by: herr doktor bimler | July 17, 2010 at 05:27 PM
hdb- I would have sworn some of your prose would have been a H.P. Lovecraft sure thing. I tried to find the damn stuff and check myself, but after 10 minutes of scrolling... I had to stop... I'd only gone through approx. 2 months worth of posting.
And yes, I did notice the writer's school ad when I went back. Next they'll be having us draw pictures of Binky and telling us which famous artist we draw like.
Andy- any traffic is traffic. :) Some of the best people come through misdirected avenues.
Posted by: Jennifer | July 17, 2010 at 05:47 PM
Ok, hdb, I found some of the writing I thought would surely get you your Lovecraft, but alas... you got James Joyce AND Margaret Mitchell.
Posted by: Jennifer | July 17, 2010 at 05:57 PM
Has anyone tried pasting in paragraphs of James Joyce or Lovecraft or Vonnegut to see whom the algorithm thinks they write like?
Posted by: herr doktor bimler | July 18, 2010 at 12:55 AM
HDB - your questions have been answered and then some
Posted by: almostinfamous | July 18, 2010 at 07:35 AM
lol!
I entered my last blog post html (which features no text, except for title="blah" when you mouse over the pictures).
David Foster Wallace
~
Posted by: ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© | July 18, 2010 at 09:04 AM
Saying Yes used the Danse Gooshers... Crazy with happiness...
Dan Brown is not cool.
Posted by: The Big, fat, wise Owl | July 18, 2010 at 09:53 AM
Saying Yes used the Danse Gooshers... Crazy with happiness...
Dan Brown is not cool.
Posted by: The Big, fat, wise Owl | July 18, 2010 at 09:53 AM
Saying Yes LOVED the Danse Gooshers! And no, Dan Brown is NOT cool. :)
Wow... a visit from Große Fette Eule, not to mention a duplicate visit... I'm honored!
Posted by: Jennifer | July 18, 2010 at 09:56 AM
thundra- that's classic.
Posted by: Jennifer | July 18, 2010 at 09:56 AM
It seems that just about everyone I know who's tried this (including the wise guys and gals who pasted in bits of some famous author's work) got Dave Foster W at least once. His was a style that includes all styles...
Posted by: Dan Leo | July 18, 2010 at 12:26 PM
"like"
I Write Like too.
Posted by: Mandos | July 18, 2010 at 12:30 PM
I tried to find the damn stuff and check myself, but after 10 minutes of scrolling... I had to stop...
That is unpossible. You can find any post at Riddled if you follow our logical and consistent system of tags.
Posted by: herr doktor bimler | July 18, 2010 at 04:09 PM
Following the above advice (typing in paragraphs of famous authors and seeing if they write like themselves), I now know that Hunter S. Thompson writes like Ian Fleming. At least, that's what I got from typing in the beginning of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". (I'm now picturing James Bond arriving at the casino to gamble while high on ether, slobbering over his expensive suit...)
Posted by: Andy | July 20, 2010 at 07:40 PM
I'm late to the party, so no one will even notice this one. I put in one paragraph describing one of my knitting experiments and one paragraph from the intro of a professional paper I am working on that is full of things like 'models' 'latent variabltes' 'rigorous statistical tests' and got
Arthur C. Clarke!
Posted by: karla | July 22, 2010 at 03:28 PM
Doh! 'Latent variables'.
Posted by: karla | July 22, 2010 at 03:28 PM
Maybe the writing program was confused and thinking of Coats & Clark yarns.
Posted by: Jennifer | July 22, 2010 at 03:47 PM
That is unpossible. You can find any post at Riddled if you follow our logical and consistent system of tags.
UNTRUE!! There are many BOC lyrics posts that ARE NOT labeled "BOC Lyrics"
And this is for ScienSmut Clyde: """"""""""""""""""""""""
Posted by: zombie rotten mcdonald | July 22, 2010 at 05:06 PM
Of course, my tagfail is epic. dagnabbit.
Posted by: zombie rotten mcdonald | July 22, 2010 at 05:06 PM
Regardless of ZombieFail, PZ Myers reveals that the "I Write Like" site is a shoddily cobbled together system, designed to entice people to delve further into the services of a vanity publisher.
Gosh, I'm disillusioned now.
Posted by: zombie rotten mcdonald | July 22, 2010 at 05:09 PM
PZ Myers reveals that the "I Write Like" site is a shoddily cobbled together system, designed to entice people to delve further into the services of a vanity publisher.
But we already knew that... I believe if you follow the conversation above, hdb alluded to that, as did I with the "Draw Binky" comment. Not that the Zombie needed enlightenment to the scamminess quotient.
Posted by: Jennifer | July 22, 2010 at 05:17 PM