Getting Started with Voyant Tools for Text Analysis

Introduction to Voyant Tools

Voyant Tools is an open-source web-based application designed to simplify text analysis, making it accessible even for those with little or no background in data analytics or computational linguistics. Its interface is intuitive, offering a range of visualization options that allow users to easily explore patterns in their text data. Although its breadth of tools may seem overwhelming initially, Voyant’s design enables users to start with simple analyses and gradually delve deeper into its capabilities.

In this tutorial, we will explore how to get started with Voyant Tools, from uploading your texts to using its primary tools for basic text analysis. By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to perform your own analyses and export the results in various formats.

Getting Started with Voyant Tools

Voyant Tools’ tagline, “see through your text,” highlights its ability to supplement traditional close reading with computational techniques. This approach can help scholars and researchers validate qualitative observations by providing quantitative evidence, identify trends and anomalies in word usage, and facilitate deeper interpretations of large text corpora.

Accessing Voyant Tools

Voyant Tools can be accessed for free at Voyant Tools. Users can analyze their own text collections or use existing corpora available on the platform. Let’s explore how to load your texts and begin your analysis.

Loading Texts into Voyant

Voyant allows multiple ways to input texts for analysis:

1. Pasting Text: Directly paste the text you want to analyze into the provided text box.
2. Using URLs: Enter URLs of webpages or PDFs hosted online, listing each URL on a new line.
3. Uploading Files: Upload documents in formats such as plain text, MS Word, PDF, RTF, HTML, or XML by selecting the “Upload” button. Click “Add” for each document you wish to include and then “Upload” once all files are ready.
4. Pre-existing Text Collections: Voyant offers several preloaded corpora, such as the Humanist Listserv Archives and Shakespeare’s plays, which you can access by selecting “Open” from the drop-down menu.

Once your text is loaded, click on the “Reveal” button to initiate the analysis.

Basic Analysis Tools in Voyant

After uploading your text or corpus, Voyant’s interface will automatically display three primary tools: Cirrus, Summary, and Corpus Reader. These tools provide an initial overview of your data, making it easy to start exploring patterns and trends.

1. Cirrus (Word Cloud)

The Cirrus tool generates a word cloud that visually represents the most frequent terms in your text, with word size indicating their relative frequency. This tool is highly interactive:

• Hover over a word to see its exact frequency in the corpus.
• Click on a word to trigger a dynamic update in other panes, showing trends and contexts for that specific term.
• To filter out common stop words like “the” or “and,” click on the cogwheel icon above the Cirrus tool, select your text’s language, and remove these words for a more insightful analysis.

2. Summary Tool

The Summary pane provides a detailed overview of the corpus, including:

• Total word count and the number of distinct words.
• Vocabulary density, indicating the richness of language in your text.
• Distinctive words that are unique to specific documents within your corpus.

This tool is particularly useful for identifying the overall structure and distinctive characteristics of your text, helping you to pinpoint areas of interest for deeper analysis.

3. Corpus Reader

The Corpus Reader displays the complete text of your corpus. It is designed for an interactive reading experience:

• Clicking on a word in the reader will highlight all its occurrences across the text.
• You can use the search bar at the bottom to locate specific words or phrases within the entire corpus.

This feature is ideal for researchers who wish to perform a close reading in parallel with quantitative text analysis.

4. Trends Tool

The Trends tool visualizes the frequency of words throughout your text or across multiple documents in your corpus. It automatically highlights the five most frequent words, but you can add more words for comparison:

• Clicking on a word in the Cirrus or Reader panes will display its frequency trend in this graph.
• Clicking a point in the graph will sync with the Reader and Context panes, providing immediate context for the word’s use.

This tool is beneficial for examining how word usage changes over time or within different sections of your text.

5. Contexts Tool

The Contexts tool allows you to see words from your corpus in their surrounding context, providing insights into how specific terms are used in various sentences. By expanding each entry, you can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the textual environment in which these words occur.

Exporting Data from Voyant Tools

Voyant Tools makes it simple to export your analysis results. Each pane includes an export option that allows you to save the data in various formats, such as:

• Images of visualizations, which can be used in presentations or publications.
• URLs that link directly to the analysis, enabling easy sharing with collaborators.
• Tab-separated or JSON data for further exploration in other software tools like spreadsheets or statistical analysis programs.

This flexibility in exporting ensures that your work in Voyant can be seamlessly integrated into larger research projects.

Advanced Customization and Embedding

One of Voyant’s standout features is its ability to generate embed codes, allowing you to incorporate interactive visualizations directly into web pages or academic blogs, as demonstrated throughout this post. This makes it a powerful tool for digital humanities projects, where sharing dynamic analyses with a broader audience is crucial.

Additionally, Voyant provides citations for specific analyses, ensuring that any visualization or data output you include in your research is properly credited.

Practical Applications of Voyant Tools

Using Voyant Tools at the early stages of a research project can reveal unexpected patterns and trends that might guide the focus of your study. For example:

• Quantitative confirmation of key themes in a text corpus or a body of work.
• Locating key phrases or words that might be pivotal to your analysis.
• Comparing word usage trends across different authors or genres.

The ease with which Voyant visualizes and quantifies text patterns makes it an invaluable supplement to rudimentary text analysis.

Conclusion

Voyant Tools offers a user-friendly entry point into the world of text analysis, with robust features for more advanced users. Its interactive visualizations, ease of data export, and ability to handle various text formats make it a versatile tool for both beginners and experienced researchers. As you become more comfortable with Voyant, you’ll find it an indispensable companion in uncovering insights from texts and exploring new dimensions of your research.

Happy analyzing!