Custom Grouping in Analytics Table

[Brett.Phalin]

I guess this is either a "How do I..." post or a "Please, make this" post.

I did a word search then clicked the table anaytics. The table shows usage by book of the Bible. Is there a feature where I can change the output to a custom defined range?

For instance, I made a custom ranges called "Paul", "Luke", etc. I'm looking for a way to quickly make a table have "Paul", "Luke", etc. going down on the left column with their "hits per 1000 words" on the right column. That way I can quickly see if certain authors or certain other customizable groups have a tendancy to use specific words.

Thanks!

[Helen Brown]

Sorry, there is no way to do this, nor has it ever been suggested, to my knowledge. It's an interesting idea but how many would use it to justify the programming time and the extra options in the interface?

[Brett.Phalin]

Thank you for the quick response, Helen.

You have a great point. I can't speak for anyone else so I'll just give my pitch, then we can wait to hear from some other people

These custom grouping could be valuable for a number of scholars:

1. Those who are into dating Old Testament books by specific linguistic features: They could have groups of Early Hebrew Books and Late Hebrew Books. Then they can do a quick search to see if a grammatical feature does in fact show up more or less in a group. Obviously that would not prove the point, but it would help to avoid unproductive rabbit trails.

2. Those who argue about New Testament authorship: This could be the beginning of a cookie cutter arguement. "A quick search of [insert word or grammatical structure] shows that the "Accepted Pauline" letters do the same thing as this letter. And we see that Paul generally uses this word/grammatical structure while others don't. Therefore..." Once again, the value is that it can quickly tell us whether a word/phrase/grammatical structure is a rabbit trail to be avoided or if it is worth digging into.
3. Grammar researchers: We all have peculiarities of the way we write. This could quickly bring any of those peculiarities to the surface for biblical authors across all their writing.

4. Source critics: Somone may want to quickly compare the theoretical "Signs source" to the theoretical "Passion source" in John. They would just have to create groups of the respective sources. Or a really ambitious person may want to create groups of the Pentateuchal sources. Then they can do could a quick search to compare the words and grammatical structures of "Priestly", "Yahwist," etc. sources. Then certain patters can emerge.

Both those trying to prove and disprove these theories might find it helpful.

 

I'm sure there are other ways to use it, but that is just an off-the-cuff answer.

Thanks for all you do, Helen

[Helen Brown]

Yes, these are interesting applications, but since you can easily put the figures into a spreadsheet or just add them up manually, you are not asking Accordance to do something that cannot otherwise be done, or only with huge effort. For example, to create the current table of the hit results would take weeks of work with a print Bible. Accordance excels at offering you capabilities that were undreamed of in the past, or required hugely tedious work.

[Brett.Phalin]

I totally agree, I'm very thankful for all that Accordance already does. I used to be a paper book only type of guy. Recently, I guess you could say that I've been converted Maybe this application is something to keep in mind for the future to take convenience to the next level.

Once again, thank you very much