Calculating STTR on the basis of 300 words

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Najat SIJILMASSI

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Jan 15, 2022, 9:47:03 AM1/15/22

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Hi Mike,

Is there any difference between calculating STTR on the basis of 1000 words and calculating it on the basis of 300 words? I am analyzing texts with different sizes, some of them are very short, so when I calculate the STTR of these texts on the basis of 1000 words, I obtain no result, therefore, I decided to calculate the STTR of ALL texts on the basis of 300 words, and I want to be sure that I am doing it well.

Many thanks,

Najat

Mike Scott

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Jan 15, 2022, 1:19:08 PM1/15/22

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Najat, hi

It's up to you to choose the number. There is no magic number, WS happens to set the default at 1,000 but that is nothing special. If your texts are shorter than that you will not get a result so a minimum number is needed.

You might try experimenting. The idea is quite a simple one and is explained in the help system. Type/Token Ratios and the Standardised Type/Token ratio (lexically.net)

Choose a suitable number and stick to it as comparisons between texts where you based it on different numbers would not make sense.