Skip to main content

Field of Science According To Wordle

"Word cloud" using Wordle.
I borrowed select text from the Wikipedia article for Fields of Science, added a bunch of Field of Science's to the mix as well as increased the number of instances of major categories of sciences. From there I pasted it into the Wordle text field and hit go. I also had to select Do Not Remove Common Words under the Language menu in order for "of" to show up, and having done the initial setup in a Word document, I knew the quantity of Maximum words...(418) under the Layout menu.

My two favored fonts were Steelfish and Superclarendon Black, and I ended up selecting between the two until I got a result I could live with. Trouble is, once you get going, it's hard to stop, thinking the perfect word cloud is always just one variable change away.

Anyway, too much fun, mildly addictive, and I recommend it to anyone. Should you need a reason, consider following my lead, only with your own unique spin and the aim of creating a header image for Field of Science.

Comments

  1. If you were waiting for a reason to give Wordle a whirl (and who am I kidding, of course you were), I can think of no better excuse than the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If You Build It,...

Field of Science is a science blog network. FoS is so named because Field of Science is a good, practical name for a website about science, but also--thanks to a certain movie--said name evokes illusions that are, more or less, analogous to what FoS is all about . . . FoS is home to bloggers who are doing actual science and whose blogging is clearly informed by their work. If you are a science blogger and your blog is powered by Blogger (or you wouldn't mind switching over to Blogger), and you are interested in joining FoS , complete an application and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. If you want to know more about the nuts, bolts and actuals, watch this presentation .

A New Wave of Science Blogging?

One can imagine science bloggers would be a (the) primary beneficiary in a landscape where Google ranks sites based on the correctness of factual information provided by the [blog] .  What's more, it is not a stretch to conclude that science bloggers could very well be in the vanguard of a new wave of bloggers who earn Google’s trust by blogging within the confines of what is known. The news that Google is working on a system of ranking sites based on the quality of their facts should be greeted by science bloggers everywhere as a game-changer.

Are Female Science Bloggers More Likely To Blog Anonymously Than Male Science Bloggers?

Google+'s real name policy sparked a lively debate in the science blogosphere. On the side of anonymity it was observed that women risk more than men when they use their real names. We know that women experience 25 TIMES the amount of harassment online that men do. I light of this blanket disparity in risk you might expect to find--or even assume--that the percentage of women in science blogging anonymously is greater than that of their male counterparts. Sifting through the Census of Science Bloggers data I realized I had a sample with which to test this assumption. But to get there I first had to answer another burning question: I wonder what the overall gender ratio is among science bloggers?   The answer, based on the census data, is approximately 2 male science bloggers for every 1 female science blogger. Again, based on the census sample, 15% of all science bloggers post anonymously. Now does that percentage change when you divvy the sample up into male and female?