I love Wordles. If you’re not familiar with a Wordle, it is a composite image of words of varying size based on the frequency of their use. The user (that’s you) pastes a block of text or provides the URL to a webpage. Wordle then generates an image for you which you may customize with various fonts, layouts, and color schemes.
So? Why would I need a jumbled collage of words? I’ve found several great uses for them. In several of my graduate classes, I have used them as visual aids to accompany a presentation on journal articles or policy statements. It can also be a unique way of previewing a scholarly journal article (especially if it is lengthy) by glancing over the keywords that will pop up throughout. This can also give you a chance to look up any words you may be unfamiliar with beforehand. When you encounter these words in context, you will already have prior knowledge to aid in comprehension.
I used the text from the subtitle files from season 4 of Game of Thrones to generate a Wordle. I didn’t really have a motive when I set out, but I was curious to see what words and names came up the most often. This can be hard to assess qualitatively as the show bounces between several point of view characters spread across a large fictional world. I did not edit the text in anyway, so you will likely find a few words deemed naughty by the highborn.
Click to view the full image size that still isn’t terribly large.
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