Add Google’s Ngram Viewer to Your List of Research Tools

Ngram Viewer is a search tool that trainees can use to check out the usage of words and names in books published in between 1800 and 2019. The Ngram Viewer reveals users a chart illustrating the very first appearance of a word or name in literature and the frequency with which that word or name appears in literature since 1800. The Ngram Viewer will let you compare the use of several words or names in one chart.

The Ngram Viewer will let you compare the usage of several words or names in one chart. The example that I give in this video is to compare the usage of the terms “National Parks,” “National Forests,” and “National Forest Service.” By looking at the Ngram Viewer for those terms I can see that they start to appear more often around 1890, have a lull in the 1940s and 1950s, and after that appear more frequently once again in the 1960s..
Ngram Viewer is based upon books indexed in Google Books. That is why below every graph produced by Ngram Viewer you will find a list of books about each of your search terms. Those books are arranged by date..
A 3rd part of Ngram Viewer to keep in mind is that it deals with multiple languages including English, French, Chinese, German, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, and Spanish..

Googles.
Ngram Viewer is a search tool that students can use to check out the use of words and names in books released between 1800 and 2019. The Ngram Viewer shows users a graph highlighting the very first look of a word or name in literature and the frequency with which that word or name appears in literature since 1800. The chart is based on the books and periodicals that are indexed in Google Books.

Applications for Education.
As I pointed out in the video above, the Ngram Viewer can offer a great way to start a research study activity for students. Have them get in a few words then analyze the chart to identify peaks and valleys in the frequency of the words use. Then ask them to try to determine what would have triggered those words to be utilized more or less often at various periods in history.

By the method, the book that I pointed out in the video is That Wild Country by Mark Kenyon..

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