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Ghost Writing

Conspiracy theorists sometimes turn to statistics to prove their case. Jack Cashill writing here compares Barack Obama's book, Dreams From My Father, with Bill Ayers' book, Fugitive Days, in order to show that Ayers is the true author of Dreams From My Father.

Cashill writes, "To add a little science to the analysis, I identified two similar 'nature' passages in Obama's and Ayers' respective memoirs, the first from Fugitive Days:

'I picture the street coming alive, awakening from the fury of winter, stirred from the chilly spring night by cold glimmers of sunlight angling through the city.'

The second from Dreams:

'Night now fell in midafternoon, especially when the snowstorms rolled in, boundless prairie storms that set the sky close to the ground, the city lights reflected against the clouds.'

These two sentences are alike in more than their poetic sense, their length and their gracefully layered structure. They tabulate nearly identically on the Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), something of a standard in the field. The 'Fugitive Days' excerpt scores a 54 on reading ease and a 12th grade reading level. The 'Dreams' excerpt scores a 54.8 on reading ease and a 12th grade reading level. Scores can range from 0 to 121, so hitting a nearly exact score matters."

Cashill continues, "A more reliable data-driven way to prove authorship goes under the rubric 'cusum analysis' or QSUM. This analysis begins with the measurement of sentence length, a significant and telling variable. To compare the two books, I selected thirty-sentence sequences from Dreams and Fugitive Days, each of which relates the author's entry into the world of 'community organizing.' 'Fugitive Days' averaged 23.13 words a sentence. 'Dreams' averaged 23.36 words a sentence. By contrast, the memoir section of [Cashill's] 'Sucker Punch' averaged 15 words a sentence."

Further, "Interestingly, the 30-sentence sequence that I pulled from Obama's conventional political tract, Audacity of Hope, averages more than 29 words a sentence and clocks in with a 9th grade reading level, three levels below the earlier cited passages from 'Dreams' and 'Fugitive Days.' The differential in the Audacity numbers should not surprise. By the time it was published in 2006, Obama was a public figure of some wealth, one who could afford editors and ghost writers."

Discussion

1. Go to the indispensible Wikipedia site here to find

Flesch Reading Ease
In the Flesch Reading Ease test, higher scores indicate material that is easier to read; lower numbers mark more-difficult-to-read passages. The formula for the Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES) test is

       206.835 -1.015 *(total words/total sentences)

                 -84.6*(total syllables/total words)

Here's the breakdown,

Score
Notes

90.0-100.0
easily understandable by an average 11-year old student

60-70
easily understandable by 13- to 15-year old students

0-30
best understood by college graduates

Determine the FRES score for this Chance News wiki. Do likewise for Cashill's article.

Wikipedia goes on to state:

"Reader's Digest magazine has a readability index of about 65, Time Magazine scores about 52, and the Harvard Law Review has a general readability score in the low 30s. The highest (easiest) readability score possible is 121 (every sentence consisting of only one-syllable words); theoretically there is no lower bound on the score -- this sentence, for example, taken as a reading passage unto itself, has a readability score of ~21.9. This paragraph has a readability score of ~53.93."

Verify the value of 53.93 which is very close to the 54 stated for each book. Does this lend credence to Bill Ayers having written this paragraph?

2. The same Wikipedia site has this to say about how FRES relates to grade level:

An obvious use for readability tests is in the field of education. The "Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Formula" translates the 0-100 score to a U.S. grade level, making it easier for teachers, parents, librarians, and others to judge the readability level of various books and texts. It can also mean the number of years of education generally required to understand this text, relevant when the formula results in a number greater than 12. The grade level is calculated with the following formula:

            0.39*(total words/total sentences) +
                  11.8*(total syllables/total words) -15.59

The result is a number that corresponds with a grade level. For example, a score of 8.2 would indicate that the text is expected to be understandable by an average student in 8th grade (usually aged 13-15 in the U.S.).

Determine the grade level for this Chance News wiki. Do likewise for Cashill's article. Likewise for the Wikipedia paragraph.

3. Go here for information about QSUM. Determine the QSUM for this Chance News wiki. Do likewise for Cashill's article.

4. Speculate on how similar any two literary works would be as viewed by FRES and QSUM if the investigator had complete free reign over what segments to use.

Submitted by Paul Alper