Tag Cloud of All Participants (Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, and Moderator Gwen Ifill) at Vice-Presidential Debate (October 2, 2008)

Clouds that are for Biden alone and Palin alone are below.

Process notes: Tag cloud generated by Wordle.net.

We used the transcript available at http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript/

Some changes were made to the original transcript for clarity’s sake: First, apostrophes in posessives were replaced with spaces to ensure that posessives were not considered differently than the nouns. Second, in order to improve visualization of phrase frequency we made the following changes: Gov. changed to Governor, Sen. changed to Senator, Wall Street changed to WallStreet, Barack Obama changed to BarackObama, Main Street changed to MainStreet, Governor Palin changed to GovernorPalin, Senator McCain changed to SenatorMcCain, John McCain changed to JohnMcCain, Senator Biden changed to SenatorBiden, Bush Doctrine changed to BushDoctrine, George Bush / Bush (when not a part of BushDoctrine or BushAdministration) changed to GeorgeBush, middle class changed to middleclass, Fannie Mae changed to FannieMae, Freddie Mac changed to FreddieMac, small business(es) / small-business changed to smallbusiness, federal government changed to FederalGovernment, vice president / V.P. changed to vicepresident, understands changed to understand, terror / terrorists changed to terrorism, United States / U.S. changed to UnitedStates, North America changed to NorthAmerica, Al Qaeda changed to alQaeda, Gen. Petraeus / Petraeus changed to GeneralPetraeus, off-shore changed to offshore, two-state solution changed to Two-stateSolution, vice-presidency changed to vicepresidency, you know changed to youknow, White House changed to WhiteHouse, sub prime changed to subprime, health care changed to healthcare, Ronald Reagan / Reagan changed to RonaldReagan, No Child Left Behind changed to NoChildLeftBehind, American people changed to AmericanPeople, Exxon Mobil / Exxon Mobils changed to ExxonMobil, $ / dollar / dollars changed to USD

Not all of the terms combined in this manner were used frequently enough to appear among the 100 words depicted in the finished word cloud.

Tag Cloud of Joe Biden at Vice-Presidential Debate (October 2, 2008)

Tag cloud generated by Wordle.net.

We used the transcript available at http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript/

Some changes were made to the original transcript for clarity’s sake: First, apostrophes in posessives were replaced with spaces to ensure that posessives were not considered differently than the nouns. Second, in order to improve visualization of phrase frequency we made the following changes: Gov. changed to Governor, Sen. changed to Senator, Wall Street changed to WallStreet, Barack Obama changed to BarackObama, Main Street changed to MainStreet, Governor Palin changed to GovernorPalin, Senator McCain changed to SenatorMcCain, John McCain changed to JohnMcCain, Senator Biden changed to SenatorBiden, Bush Doctrine changed to BushDoctrine, George Bush / Bush (when not a part of BushDoctrine or BushAdministration) changed to GeorgeBush, middle class changed to middleclass, Fannie Mae changed to FannieMae, Freddie Mac changed to FreddieMac, small business(es) / small-business changed to smallbusiness, federal government changed to FederalGovernment, vice president / V.P. changed to vicepresident, understands changed to understand, terror / terrorists changed to terrorism, United States / U.S. changed to UnitedStates, North America changed to NorthAmerica, Al Qaeda changed to alQaeda, Gen. Petraeus / Petraeus changed to GeneralPetraeus, off-shore changed to offshore, two-state solution changed to Two-stateSolution, vice-presidency changed to vicepresidency, you know changed to youknow, White House changed to WhiteHouse, sub prime changed to subprime, health care changed to healthcare, Ronald Reagan / Reagan changed to RonaldReagan, No Child Left Behind changed to NoChildLeftBehind, American people changed to AmericanPeople, Exxon Mobil / Exxon Mobils changed to ExxonMobil, $ / dollar / dollars changed to USD

Not all of the terms combined in this manner were used frequently enough to appear among the 100 words depicted in the finished word cloud, and some of them were initially used by Biden and not by Palin and vice-versa.

Tag Cloud of Sarah Palin at Vice-Presidential Debate (October 2, 2008)

Tag cloud generated by Wordle.net.

We used the transcript available at http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript/

Some changes were made to the original transcript for clarity’s sake: First, apostrophes in posessives were replaced with spaces to ensure that posessives were not considered differently than the nouns. Second, in order to improve visualization of phrase frequency we made the following changes: Gov. changed to Governor, Sen. changed to Senator, Wall Street changed to WallStreet, Barack Obama changed to BarackObama, Main Street changed to MainStreet, Governor Palin changed to GovernorPalin, Senator McCain changed to SenatorMcCain, John McCain changed to JohnMcCain, Senator Biden changed to SenatorBiden, Bush Doctrine changed to BushDoctrine, George Bush / Bush (when not a part of BushDoctrine or BushAdministration) changed to GeorgeBush, middle class changed to middleclass, Fannie Mae changed to FannieMae, Freddie Mac changed to FreddieMac, small business(es) / small-business changed to smallbusiness, federal government changed to FederalGovernment, vice president / V.P. changed to vicepresident, understands changed to understand, terror / terrorists changed to terrorism, United States / U.S. changed to UnitedStates, North America changed to NorthAmerica, Al Qaeda changed to alQaeda, Gen. Petraeus / Petraeus changed to GeneralPetraeus, off-shore changed to offshore, two-state solution changed to Two-stateSolution, vice-presidency changed to vicepresidency, you know changed to youknow, White House changed to WhiteHouse, sub prime changed to subprime, health care changed to healthcare, Ronald Reagan / Reagan changed to RonaldReagan, No Child Left Behind changed to NoChildLeftBehind, American people changed to AmericanPeople, Exxon Mobil / Exxon Mobils changed to ExxonMobil, $ / dollar / dollars changed to USD

Not all of the terms combined in this manner were used frequently enough to appear among the 100 words depicted in the finished word cloud, and some of them were initially used by Biden and not by Palin and vice-versa.

Barack Obama’s Speech on Race (March 18, 2008)

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/us/politics/18text-obama.html?_r=1&scp=16&sq=reverend%20wright%20speech&st=cse&oref=slogin

Process notes: word cloud generated by Wordle.net. Clarifiying changes made including: Reverend Wright changed to ReverendWright, United States changed to UnitedStages, World War II changed to WWII, Middle East changed to MiddleEast, African American(s) and African-American(s) changed to AfricanAmerican, Americans changed to American, You Tube changed to YouTube, South Carolina changed to SouthCarolina, white American changed to WhiteAmerican, black American changed to BlackAmerican, health care changed to healthcare, Christians changed to Christian, racial and races changed to race.

Some of these changes are not reflected in the finished cloud as the counts remained too low.

‘s was removed from possessive nouns to ensure that posessives were not listed differently than the nouns that possess.

John McCain’s Acceptance Speech at RNC (September 4, 2008)

Source: http://portal.gopconvention2008.com/speech/details.aspx?id=84

Process notes: word cloud generated by Wordle.net. Combinations and other edits: United States changed to UnitedStates, Senator Obama changed to SenatorObama, teacher changed to teachers, health care changed to healthcare, White House changed to WhiteHouse, Pearl Harbor changed to PearlHarbor, vice president changed to VicePresident, child changed to children, Governor Sarah Palin / Governor Palin changed to GovernorPalin, tax / taxation changed to taxes, Americans changed to American, family changed to families, $ or dollar changed to USD, opportunities changed to opportunity, school changed to schools .

Some of these changes are not reflected in the finished cloud as the counts remained too low.

A space was added before each (NOUN)’s to ensure that possessives were not listed differently than the nouns that possess.

Note that we did not combine words relating to work, although their counts were high (work -15 instances, worked – 3 instances, workers – 6 instances, workforce – 1 instance, working – 2 instances, and works – 6 instances).

John McCain at First Presidential Debate (September 25, 2008)

Tag cloud of Senator John McCain’s frequently-used words in the first Presidential debate, September 25, 2008:

Created using Wordle.net. Note that some corrections / clarifications were made. Some spaces were removed from phrases including United States, pork barrel, and Next President so the words would not be tagged separately. Instances of McCain and Senator McCain were combined as SenatorMcCain. Instances of Obama and Senator Obama were combined as SenatorObama. Iranian was combined with Iran, Russian was combined with Russia. Tax was combined with Taxes. Because the cloudmaker didn’t like $, it was replaced with USD. Etc, etc, etc.

Barack Obama at First Presidential Debate (September 25, 2008)

Tag cloud of Senator Barack Obama’s frequently-used words in the first Presidential debate, September 25, 2008 :

Created using Wordle.net. Note that some corrections / clarifications were made. Some spaces were removed from phrases including United States, pork barrel, and Next President so the words would not be tagged separately. Instances of McCain and Senator McCain were combined as SenatorMcCain. Instances of Obama and Senator Obama were combined as SenatorObama. Iranian was combined with Iran, Russian was combined with Russia. Tax was combined with Taxes. Because the cloudmaker didn’t like $, it was replaced with USD. Etc, etc, etc.

Sarah Palin at the Republican National Convention (September 3, 2008)

Word cloud of Sarah Palin’s speech at the RNC. Text taken from http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/conventions/videos/transcripts/20080903_PALIN_SPEECH.html

Created using wordle.net. Process notes: The following changes were made for clarity and to avoid redunancy: United States = UnitedStates; vice president = VicePresident; John McCain = JohnMcCain; John S. McCain = JohnMcCain; McCain (when used without John) = JohnMcCain; candidates = candidate; daughter = daughters; son = sons; Americans = American; small town / small towns / small-town = smalltown; moms = mom; next president = NextPresident; Saudi Arabia = SaudiArabia; challenges = challenge; daughters = daughter; White House = WhiteHouse; pipeline = pipelines; tax = taxes; terrorists = terrorist; opponents = opponent; Al Qaida = AlQaida; businesses = business; produce / produced / producing = production. Not all changes are reflected in the cloud because the frequency was still not high enough.

A space was added before each (noun)’s to ensure that possessives were not listed differently than the nouns that possess.

Many hypens were either deleted or replaced with spaces as appropriate (for example, McCain-Palin = McCain Palin, commander-in-chief remains unchanged, and kind-hearted is changed to kindhearted).