Exploring texts using Julia in the REPL

In this class, we’ll begin to use the Julia REPL to explore texts of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Assignment: contract for group work

Please download and complete the contract for group work availabe in the course Google drive. Print a copy of your completed contract, and submit one hard copy of the contract signed by all members of your group.

While digital assignments are due at 12:00 pm, this hard-copy requirement is instead due 2:00 when you come to class.

Class preparation

Modelling the Gettysburg Address

Read the two introductory paragraphs about the Gettysburg Address on this page from abrahamlincolnonline.org

Lincoln was not the featured speaker at Gettsyburg in 1863. That honor belonged to Edward Everett, a remarkable scholar, diplomat and public servant.

Why do we remember Lincoln’s speech rather than Everett’s? Everett himself highlighted the conciseness of Lincoln’s speech when he later wrote to Lincoln, “I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.” (source) Others have suggested that in addition to its brevity, Lincoln’s speech is memorable for its direct, plain style, in contrast to Everett’s florid language.

How could we compare the two speeches? What observations would you make to characterize the rhetorical style of Lincoln or Everett? Simply looking at the length of each text certainly tells us something about Lincoln’s ability to address his topic concisely.

Please draw up a list of specific observations you would make to evaluate the suggestion that Lincoln’s style is simpler, more direct or more accessible than Everett’s. For each observation, explain how it might help us understand Lincoln’s rhetorical style.

Data models

What you are doing when you compile this list is an example of data modelling: you are defining features that can help us understand the material we are studying. All scholars do this, although we may not always talk about this part of our work in the same terms. Read this wikipedia article on the aphorism “All models are wrong”.

Review your list of proposed observations. Append to it a paragraph identifying ways that your model of an oration is wrong.

Assignment: proposing a data model

By 12:00 pm on the day of class, add to your personal folder on the course Google drive a file named {LASTNAME}-oration-model.txt, replacing {LASTNAME} with your last name. The file should be in plain-text format. Its contents should include both the list of your proposed observations and your paragraph identifying ways your model is wrong.

Coding with Julia

If you have followed the instructions in the previous class preparation assignment to install Julia on your computer, make sure you can open a Julia REPL (or interactive terminal) on your computer.

In class

Bring a laptop to class. We’ll begin to learn how to use the Julia language interactively.