Subject: tc-list text criticism of Mark

From: "Vinton A. Dearing" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 16:53:49 PST

The November issue of Literary and Linguistic Computing (vol. 12, no. 
4) has two items of interest.
  1. "Measuring Genre Differences in Mark with Correspondence 
Analysis," by David Mealand. This seems mostly an exellent 
example of statistical analysis--all the data are given and the 
results are fully diagrammed--but I wonder whether it is enough to 
decide that a sample size which has "worked" for others is 
satisfactory for one's own work. Also, the statistical methods are 
simply named, never explained. 
  2. A review of Richard J. Finneran, ed., The Literary Text in the 
Digital Age, University of Michigan Press, 1996.
  If any listers or lurkers have explored the question of sample size 
I should be interested to know their opinions.
     Vinton A. Dearing

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 19:04:29 -0600

>I should be interested to know their opinions.

I can't say anything about the articles cited, since I haven't seen
them and don't recall ever seeing the journal.

But I have noticed a terrible tendency among TC professionals to use
inadequate sample sizes. (E.g. the Alands' "Thousand Readings" use
only three or four readings in some of the shorter Pauline Epistles.)

The sample size one needs depends on the nature of the data one
is trying to extract. But the Central Limit Theorem -- one of
the basic rules of statistics -- only applies when one uses "large"
numbers, which in practice means a minimum of thirty to fifty
meaningful points of data.

What this means for TCers is that if they want to determine the
affinities of two mixed manuscripts, they need to find at least
30 to 50 readings for which both manuscripts are unmixed (non-Byzantine).
Even for overall affinities, they need 30-50 readings. This
can render many results (e.g. the Alands' for the shorter books,
but also some methods such as the Claremont Profile Method)
invalid if they don't use enough text.

I hope I will be able to offer more information on this subject
at a future time.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

                        Robert B. Waltz
                     [email-masked]

Want more loudmouthed opinions about textual criticism?
Try my web page: http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn
(A site inspired by the Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism)