3.4 Weighted Frequency of Articles

A plot showing the importance of all topics over time on a single graph, as measured by weighted frequency. The underlying data is in Table B.3. It is mostly a mess of dots that doesn't show very much, but what information can be gleaned by looking is described in the text below.

Figure 3.5: All ninety topics—weighted frequency of articles.

There are some dots in the upper-left quadrant, and then a bunch of dots bouncing along the bottom tenth of the graph. It isn’t very informative, and breaking it out by topic doesn’t help a lot.

The same data as above, but with each topic shown as a separate facet

Figure 3.6: The ninety topics—weighted frequency of articles (faceted).

In this case, cutting down the to the last seventy-five years produces a much more readable graph.

Figure 3.7: All ninety topics—weighted frequency of articles.

There are too many overlapping dots here to see much, but the animation is a little clearer.

And the result is an animated version of some graphs that appeared a lot in the previous chapter.