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Literary and Linguistic Computing 2004 19(4):477-495; doi:10.1093/llc/19.4.477
© 2004 by Association for Literary & Linguistic Computing
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Delta Prime?

David L. Hoover*

New York University, USA

John F. Burrows has proposed Delta, a simple new measure of textual difference, as a tool for authorship attribution, and has shown that it has great potential, especially in attribution problems where the possible authors are numerous and difficult to limit by traditional methods. In tests on prose, Delta has performed nearly as well as for Burrows's verse texts. A series of further tests using automated methods, however, shows that two modified methods of calculating Delta and three alternatives to or transformations of Delta produce results that are even more accurate. Four of these five new measures produce much better results than Delta both on a very diverse group of 104 novels and on a group of forty-four smaller contemporary literary critical texts. Although further testing is needed, Delta and its modifications should prove valuable and effective tools for authorship attribution.

* Correspondence: David L. Hoover, Department of English, New York University, 19 University Place, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10003, USA. E-mail: david.hoover{at}nyu.edu


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