Text Summary Project

1
Text Summary Project

• Jeff Chambers

2
Experiment

• Dr. Lorch collected data to figure out if
  headings made a difference in what sentences were
  chosen in a summary
• 4 articles 2 with headings, 2 without
• With the same data I answered the following
  questions
• Does sentence type matter?
• Does sentence length matter?
• Does placement in the article matter?

3
Sentence Types

• Simple one independent clause (subject
  predicate)
• ie. He threw the ball
• Compound two independent clauses combined with
  conjuncture
• ie. He threw the ball and it bounced

4
Sentence Types

• Complex independent and dependent clauses
  combined with subjugator
• He threw the ball because it was red.
• Compound-Complex has properties of compound and
  complex sentences

5
Methods

• Split up the sentences by their respective
  categories
• Took averages and standard deviations
• If one sentence type has a significantly higher
  average than the others, then we can conclude
  that sentence type makes a difference.

6
Results

• Simple Avg- 3.13 SDev- 4.31
• Compound Avg- 3.17 SDev 4.48
• Complex Avg- 2.54 SDev 2.84
• Both Avg- 1.52 SDev- 1.86
• L1 Avg- 3.18 SDev- 4.36
• L2 Avg- 2.94 SDev- 3.93
• Lgt3 Avg- 2.47 SDev- 3.70

7
Results (Cont.)

• Simple Length1 Avg- 3.21 SDev- 4.62
• Simple Length2 Avg- 3.11 SDev- 4.26
• Compound Length2 Avg-3.31 SDev- 4.12

8
Placement in Article
9
Future Work

• Does placement within a paragraph matter?