I made a post recently about the label cloud that I set up for this blog. You can see the post here if you like. I was pretty proud of myself for being able to customize my blog this way, but the image that i used was just an image I found using a quick google search for "word cloud."
I've just found a site (Wordle.net) that will generate customized word clouds based on a piece of sample text that you can type or paste into a window. You can also paste the URL of a site into a window and it will generate a word cloud based on the words used at this site. I've included two word clouds with this post. The first cloud is based on the words used in this entire blog; the second is comprised of words used in this particular post.
Not only is the image representative of this site, but it is also fascinating for me to see a snapshot of words that I've used in my writing over the last few weeks. For instance, I tell my students not to use the phrase "I think" at the beginning of every sentence. It is fairly redundant considering that what you are writing should be considered a
reflection of what you think of a topic. Yet, the word "think" is close to my most used word on this blog -- and growing more so with the writing of this post. Another word that might be detracting from the assured nature of my writing is the word "might" -- or more specifically, another word that is detracting from...I was surprised to see the word "event" so big, given that i've only written one post about an event. I think (there's that word again!) that this might be due to the fact that i write, "in any event" as a transition quite often in my writing.
A few pleasant surprises: "love," "solid," "people," "music"
Words that i should use less of: "around," "couple," "just," "pretty," "something," "probably"
