Ivy League folks can't tell Dickens from the worst writer in history

[Dickens]

One is feted the world over as a titan of English literature; the other is ridiculed as a byword for clunky, artless fiction.

But can anyone tell the difference?

A new study has found that people really are none the wiser about whether they're reading a Charles Dickens masterpiece or one of the works of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, billed as 'the worst writer in history'.

In a university experiment, more than 9,000 people worldwide were presented with a dozen passages from the novels of the two Victorian authors.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297869/Charles-Dickens-worlds-worst-writer-Blind-reading-test-48-tell-difference-literature-great-ridiculed-novelist.html#ixzz2l7RcgRlB

[GregSarnowski]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGHmpuCDLsQ

[Acala]

I don't particularly like Dickens.

[Acala]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGHmpuCDLsQ

To me it is far more idiotic to say that your favorite book is a POS like the Reagan Diaries or George Bush's nonsense than to say your favorite book is a great book like War and Peace even if you then quote a different good book.

[Petar]

I remember reading a little bit out of a small, psalms booklet-like copy of "A Christmas Carol" when I was a young child and feeling like a had opened a nightmare portal to hell for some reason. There was just something about the mentality behind the words that the characters were saying that I found disturbing beyond belief. Some scenes from the Disney version are liable to give a kid nightmares as well. Much prefer Oscar Wilde.

[thoughtomator]

Lit appreciation is not part of the "how to steal from entire nations and get away with it" curriculum.

[RJB]

I've always believed that if Dickens or Shakespeare were writers just starting out today, college professors would tell them they were trying too hard.

Phil Hendrie, the satirical talk show host, claimed he would read from a Christmas novel he was writing. As he was reading, I was smugly thinking, "You can tell this is Phil's first novel. He is way overdoing it on the description like most beginners."

As he kept reading I realized he was reading Dickens, A Christmas Carol. :o

The study doesn't surprise me.

[Dickens]

Lit appreciation is not part of the "how to steal from entire nations and get away with it" curriculum.
Do you suggest that this is the curriculum of Ivy League schools?

[erowe1]

It was an online quiz where people's top university-ness was determined by IP address. And the number of people from those "top universities," when counted that way, was only 72, so the margin of error is like 12%.

Also, they only used a dozen passages from the two authors. Which passages? How were the passages chosen?

[Dickens]

It was an online quiz where people's top university-ness was determined by IP address.
Anything wrong with it?


And the number of people from those "top universities," when counted that way, was only 72, so the margin of error is like 12%.
Even if what you are saying were true, the average Ivy League score would still be below 62%, which would still mean that they can't tell the difference.

However your estimate of error margin 0.12=1/sqrt(72) is wrong since you need to multiply this number by the variance of the distribution, which is much less than 1.



Also, they only used a dozen passages from the two authors. Which passages? How were the passages chosen?
I guess you can read the article

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09296174.2012.754602#preview

[erowe1]

Anything wrong with it?

Yes. IP addresses don't tell you enough to draw conclusions about who took the test. Just because someone took it at Harvard, that doesn't tell us what their affiliation with Harvard is. We don't know if they're students, or, if they are, we don't know their majors, or even if they're native English speakers.



Even if what you are saying were true, the average Ivy League score would still be below 62%, which would still mean that they can't tell the difference.

However your estimate of error margin 0.12=1/sqrt(72) is wrong since you need to multiply this number by the variance of the distribution, which is much less than 1.

I looked it up somewhere. I don't remember where. But I just used this calculator just now to check what you said, and it gives a margin of error of 11.55 for a sample size of 72. The only way to get a margin or error much less than that for this sample size is by assuming that it's a sample out of a small population, like 1000 or less, which is much smaller than the population of people who have access to computers at all of the schools they listed.

http://americanresearchgroup.com/moe.html




I guess you can read the article

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09296174.2012.754602#preview
I actually can't. Did you read it, if so, does it answer those questions?

[Dickens]

Yes. IP addresses don't tell you enough to draw conclusions about who took the test. Just because someone took it at Harvard, that doesn't tell us what their affiliation with Harvard is. We don't know if they're students, or, if they are, we don't know their majors, or even if they're native English speakers.

Check this out



Dalfonzo continues 4:

“The method of collecting data seems just as shaky ….So we know we have an educated subset because of their location, even though we have no idea whether the person sitting at any given computer was a professor, a student, or a janitor.”

During all those years on campus, I never saw a janitor at a computer. To make the objection plausible the spoilers should have been secretaries. They had caused trouble before. Richard Nixon’s secretary erased some tapes and the President had to resign his office. They must be the ones to blame for the scandalous results of the quiz as well. Let me give a word to a more diligent commenter, Taylor Malmsheimer from New York Daily News 5:

“Skeptical? We were too, so we asked an English major at Dartmouth, which is allegedly in the Ivy League, to take … [the] quiz…She correctly answered six out of the 12 questions…”


http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/4728361/Statistics-against-irritations-a-response-to-Dickenss-apologists-or-If-high-read.html

It also has a link to the non-subscription version of the article

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0909.2479v2

[austin944]

I think this may be the quiz:
http://reverent.org/bulwer-dickens.html

I got a score of 67% :o

[green73]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGHmpuCDLsQ

Jesus Christ.

[green73]

To me it is far more idiotic to say that your favorite book is a POS like the Reagan Diaries or George Bush's nonsense than to say your favorite book is a great book like War and Peace even if you then quote a different good book.

At least one person said The Law

[Icymudpuppy]

I always thought Dickens WAS the worst writer in history. What's there to confuse? I can't stand any of his books, much preferring the movie adaptations that cut out all his crap.

[Dickens]

I always thought Dickens WAS the worst writer in history. What's there to confuse?
But this was only your personal opinion which stood against the collective opinion of millions of English teachers who imposed Dickens on their students. However, Bulwer is famous for the Wretched Writing Contest named after him. Therefore the test results vindicate your opinion. I congratulate you on your victory over groupthink.

[Dickens]

Interestingly Dickens and Bulwer have almost the same average reader ratings

http://ecclesiastes911.net/famous_writers_just_have_many_readers/

[RonPaulGeorge&Ringo]

I always thought Dickens WAS the worst writer in history. What's there to confuse? I can't stand any of his books, much preferring the movie adaptations that cut out all his crap.

He was paid by the word...

[RonPaulGeorge&Ringo]

BTW, I read this headline as "worst winter in history".... thought it was gonna be about the global warming cult.

[Spikender]

I remember this story, actually, and it's still funny to me. I'm not literary critic, but anything that sucks me in and has a good message for me to chew on and digest is good writing to me.

[Dickens]

I've always believed that if Dickens or Shakespeare were writers just starting out today, college professors would tell them they were trying too hard.

Phil Hendrie, the satirical talk show host, claimed he would read from a Christmas novel he was writing. As he was reading, I was smugly thinking, "You can tell this is Phil's first novel. He is way overdoing it on the description like most beginners."

As he kept reading I realized he was reading Dickens, A Christmas Carol. :o

The study doesn't surprise me.
The article states that in a related experiment, publishers had rejected Booker prize-winning novels submitted as works by aspiring authors.

[Philhelm]

I'm sure the test could be easily rigged in order to end with the desired outcome. Be that as it may, I'll go out on a limb and state that the vaunted Ivy League is a joke. C-Span has convinced me of this.

[Dickens]

I'm sure the test could be easily rigged in order to end with the desired outcome. Be that as it may, I'll go out on a limb and state that the vaunted Ivy League is a joke. C-Span has convinced me of this.
OK. But who are the giants of thought who can tell Dickens from Bulwer?

[RJB]

The article states that in a related experiment, publishers had rejected Booker prize-winning novels submitted as works by aspiring authors.

Someone submitted the screenplay for Casablanca to a studio with a different title and characters with different names and it was soundly rejected.

[Philhelm]

OK. But who are the giants of thought who can tell Dickens from Bulwer?

Frankly, it doesn't matter, as it certainly isn't a question of intelligence.

[angelatc]

Someone submitted the screenplay for Casablanca to a studio with a different title and characters with different names and it was soundly rejected.

The St Pete Times (Tampa Bay Times now) did almost the same thing with The Yearling. I can't find the story right now, but as I remember they typed it up, submitted it as a manuscript, and got tons of rejection letters, none of them from editors accusing them of plagiarism.

Only one publisher, a small house in Bradenton, accepted it.

[Dickens]

The St Pete Times (Tampa Bay Times now) did almost the same thing with The Yearling. I can't find the story right now, but as I remember they typed it up, submitted it as a manuscript, and got tons of rejection letters, none of them from editors accusing them of plagiarism.

Only one publisher, a small house in Bradenton, accepted it.
Here is the story. Albeit the sole publisher did not accept the novel but recognized it.

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1991/Publishers-Reject-Retitled-Yearling-/id-32a98e290c49d9efe147b52dbb784e88

[Dickens]

In five separate experiments publishers rejected literary classics submitted
as works by unknown authors

Publishers rejected classics in disguise (http://ecclesiastes911.net/publishers_rejected_classics_in_disguise/)