Exercises

Both W. T. Stead and Edward Tyas Cook were working for the Pall Mall Gazette at the time of the Jack the Ripper murders. Use AICBT's online authorship attribution tool to figure out which one was covering the case. Here is a link to the newspaper articles for you to test; be sure to find at least two that aren't just reproducing someone else's writing (like a letter to the editor).

Here is a link to W. T. Stead's works. You can find one of Cook's works here.

• What articles from the Pall Mall Gazette did you choose? Why did you choose them?
• What excerpts from Cook and Stead's writing did you choose? Why did you choose those excerpts? (Remember, giving the tool more data to train on means the more likely you are to get accurate data.)
• What did you find using the attribution tool? Are you coming up with clear results for either article?
• How confident are you that you can attribute either article to Cook or Stead? Why or why not?