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Digital Methods Whitepaper

Data Driven Digital Humanities Jargon

The above image shows the keywords from a topic model of a DH (Digital Humanities) blog.

Readings

Getting Started in the Digital Humanities This article provides a nice overview of the field by Lisa Spiro in the Journal of Digital Humanities. http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/1-1/getting-started-in-digital-humanities-by-lisa-spiro/

A Companion to Digital Humanities

Large "textbook" that mainly engages the theoretical subject matter of the Digital Humanities. A good orientation to the field as it was conceived in 2004. http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/

Digital Humanities Questions & Answers

This is a fairly active forum of people asking and answering questions related to the digital humanities. If you have a question about digital humanities or digital methods, use the search tool to see if someone has already asked the question! http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/

The Programming Historian

This is an online "textblook" that has been collaboratively authored as a blog. The programming historian is divided up as a series of lessons each focusing on a specific skill, a digital method, used to do digital history. The lessons are well written and targeted at beginners. http://programminghistorian.org/lessons/

The Historian's Macroscope: Big Digital History

This is another skills based textbook for doing digital history. Written for a technical audience, but provides a good introduction to topic modeling and network analysis. Like The Programming Historian, it gets pretty technical. Targeted at advanced students, graduate students, and researchers. http://www.themacroscope.org

Digital History Methods in R

This is another online textbook for digital historians. This book focuses specifically on the R statistical programming language environment. It covers a statistics, GIS, text mining, and network analysis. Definitely oriented towards advanced students and researchers with substantial technology and programming skills. http://dh-r.lincolnmullen.com

Example Projects

Lord Of The Rings Project

This is not a Digital Humanities project per se, but it is an beautifully made project that demonstrates using digital methods for both investigation and communication. The project compiled statistics about demographics and life expectancy, created maps of middle earth, and historical timelines. http://lotrproject.com

Mining the Dispatch

This project used topic modeling to study the Richmond Daily Dispatch, a civil war era newspaper. It is a neat project to explore and show how topic modeling can be used to analyze historical texts. http://dsl.richmond.edu/dispatch/

The CUNY Digital Humanities Resource Guide - Sample Projects

This subsection of a larger wiki includes a list of digital projects. Some of the projects are research focused, others are advocacy or scholarly publishing. http://commons.gc.cuny.edu/wiki/index.php/Sample_Projects

Tools

Digital Research Tools (DiRT) Directory

This is a comprehensive list of tools in the digital humanities. It is organized around research activities (analyzing texts, collecting data, visualization, etc.). This is a very comprehensive list, but be careful as it can be confusing to navigate.
http://dirtdirectory.org

The CUNY Digital Humanities Resource Guide - Tools & Methods

This section of a larger wiki about the digital humanities is focused on digital tools and methods. There are a lot of links out to other lists (like the DiRT directory listed above) as well as specific tools. http://commons.gc.cuny.edu/wiki/index.php/Tools_%26_Methods

Text Analysis

Voyant

"Voyant Tools is a web-based reading and analysis environment for digital texts." http://voyant-tools.org/

Word Tree

"A word tree is a visual search tool for unstructured text, such as a book, article, speech or poem. It lets you pick a word or phrase and shows you all the different contexts in which it appears. The contexts are arranged in a tree-like branching structure to reveal recurrent themes and phrases." http://www.jasondavies.com/wordtree/

Mapping and Timelines

Neatline

"Neatline allows scholars, students, and curators to tell stories with maps and timelines. As a suite of add-on tools for Omeka, it opens new possibilities for hand-crafted, interactive spatial and temporal interpretation." http://neatline.org/

Example Neatline project: A Sentimental Journey

This exhibit was created by Kurt Jensen, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia. "For many reasons, I believe this neatline project is particularly valuable and illuminating of the textónot only to aid the reader in placing Yorick's movements and making sense of the text, but also to call attention to where the narrative leaves the linear plot of travel in favor of the lengthy ruminations and preoccupations that enliven his journey." http://enec3120.neatline-uva.org/neatline/show/a-sentimental-journey

Geocommons

"GeoCommons is the public community of GeoIQ users who are building an open repository of data and maps for the world. The GeoIQ platform includes a large number of features that empower you to easily access, visualize and analyze your data." http://geocommons.com/

Network Perspectives

Network Theory, Plot Analysis

Franco Moretti - Literary Lab Pamphlet 2, May 1, 2011 "...if you work on novels or plays, style is only part of the picture. What about plot ñ how can that be quantified? This paper is the beginning of an answer, and the beginning of the beginning is network theory. " http://litlab.stanford.edu/LiteraryLabPamphlet2.pdf

Exhibits

Omeka - Main site

"Omeka is a free, flexible, and open source web-publishing platform for the display of library, museum, archives, and scholarly collections and exhibitions." http://omeka.org/

Omeka - Free online hosting

"Omeka.net is web-publishing platform that allows anyone with an account to create or collaborate on a website to display collections and build digital exhibitions. No technical skills or special server requirements are necessary." http://www.omeka.net/

Texts from Jane Eyre (book website)

"Everyone knows that if Scarlett OíHara had an unlimited text-and-data plan, sheíd constantly try to tempt Ashley away from Melanie with suggestive messages. If Mr. Rochester could text Jane Eyre, his ardent missives would obviously be in all-caps. And Daisy Buchanan would not only text while driving, sheíd text you to pick her up after she totaled her car." http://textsfromjaneeyre.com/

DH Blogs