1 00:00:00,430 --> 00:00:01,050 Hi, I'm Lauren. 2 00:00:01,050 --> 00:00:01,990 >> Hi, I'm Alvin. 3 00:00:01,990 --> 00:00:06,470 >> I'm an instructor at a university nearby and I've been noticing that when 4 00:00:06,470 --> 00:00:09,700 my students write their essays, they have 5 00:00:09,700 --> 00:00:13,100 very long, very wordy sentences and I would 6 00:00:13,100 --> 00:00:17,600 like to develop some kind of tool that they can use to keep track of 7 00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:20,440 this and maybe perfect their writing style. 8 00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:21,410 Do you think that's something you could do? 9 00:00:21,410 --> 00:00:25,850 >> I think so. Let's start by helping me get acquainted with the students 10 00:00:25,850 --> 00:00:29,620 in the class. So how many students do we have in this class typically? 11 00:00:29,620 --> 00:00:34,000 >> Usually about 45 per unit, but I can have up to six units a semester. 12 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:36,420 >> 45 students, and six sections per 13 00:00:36,420 --> 00:00:39,220 semester. That's a farily reasonable size. So, 14 00:00:39,220 --> 00:00:42,790 do you know anything about what the students are using as far as computers go? 15 00:00:42,790 --> 00:00:46,640 >> I don't know what kind of computers they're using. And they 16 00:00:46,640 --> 00:00:50,960 could be, I don't know, anywhere from having no tech experience to 17 00:00:50,960 --> 00:00:52,200 being pretty proficient. 18 00:00:52,200 --> 00:00:54,930 >> Do you know anything about how 19 00:00:54,930 --> 00:00:57,350 familiar the students are with computers in general? 20 00:00:57,350 --> 00:00:59,540 >> I'm sure we have some people on the low end that have 21 00:00:59,540 --> 00:01:01,430 never done any type of programming, and 22 00:01:01,430 --> 00:01:03,680 then some people who are pretty self-sufficient. 23 00:01:03,680 --> 00:01:07,210 >> Okay, and I guess my last question related to 24 00:01:07,210 --> 00:01:10,170 the students is, what is the students actually submitting to you. 25 00:01:10,170 --> 00:01:14,080 >> They've been sending just raw text files via email to me. 26 00:01:14,080 --> 00:01:16,660 >> So from the sounds of things 27 00:01:16,660 --> 00:01:19,140 we have a fairly broad, I guess base 28 00:01:19,140 --> 00:01:23,100 of students to work with, both in technical proficiency 29 00:01:23,100 --> 00:01:27,180 as well as their operating system environments potentially. 30 00:01:27,180 --> 00:01:29,420 So I think what we'll probably do to start 31 00:01:29,420 --> 00:01:33,270 off with is make a command line, Java 32 00:01:33,270 --> 00:01:36,760 based tool. That the students can run and we'll 33 00:01:36,760 --> 00:01:39,910 give them a fair amount of you know, documentation 34 00:01:39,910 --> 00:01:41,690 on how to use the tool. And I expect 35 00:01:41,690 --> 00:01:45,090 that there will be a lot of little error conditions that may happen 36 00:01:45,090 --> 00:01:49,320 that we want to produce a reasonably friendly message were anything to go wrong. 37 00:01:49,320 --> 00:01:50,480 >> Yeah. That'd be great. 38 00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:54,750 >> So, a little bit more, I guess about 39 00:01:54,750 --> 00:01:58,539 the actual essay itself, its submission, what constitutes a word? 40 00:01:59,820 --> 00:02:03,190 >> I really only care about the longer words, so, is there a 41 00:02:03,190 --> 00:02:06,140 way that we can only count words that are maybe above three letters? 42 00:02:06,140 --> 00:02:06,830 >> I think 43 00:02:06,830 --> 00:02:08,508 that's something we can do. And I think 44 00:02:08,508 --> 00:02:10,030 that because you seem a little bit unsure 45 00:02:10,030 --> 00:02:11,540 we might be able to have that be 46 00:02:11,540 --> 00:02:13,820 a little bit more flexible than we otherwise would. 47 00:02:13,820 --> 00:02:14,500 >> Great. 48 00:02:14,500 --> 00:02:18,330 >> What does a sentence mean to you? Is it kind of flexible? 49 00:02:18,330 --> 00:02:21,280 >> I would say anything that ends in a period or 50 00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:25,870 even a question mark. Maybe even an exclamation mark. or, something 51 00:02:25,870 --> 00:02:28,760 even, maybe even with a comma or semi-colon. I really only 52 00:02:28,760 --> 00:02:32,370 care about the sentences that aren't gramatically correct and are too long. 53 00:02:32,370 --> 00:02:35,180 >> I think we can probably make that a little bit more flexible too 54 00:02:35,180 --> 00:02:37,520 so that way, you can kind of say we're going to, or you want to include them. 55 00:02:37,520 --> 00:02:38,020 >> Mm-hm. 56 00:02:38,020 --> 00:02:41,786 >> So maybe, sounds like you are little bit on the fence 57 00:02:41,786 --> 00:02:45,100 about whether or not say, a comma should be considered a sentence. 58 00:02:45,100 --> 00:02:45,130 >> Mm. 59 00:02:45,130 --> 00:02:46,370 >> Entirely on its own or not. So we 60 00:02:46,370 --> 00:02:49,830 can probably make that a little bit configurable as well. 61 00:02:51,880 --> 00:02:56,510 And so, just to confirm the actual end result to 62 00:02:56,510 --> 00:02:59,870 the student is the average number of words per sentence? 63 00:02:59,870 --> 00:03:01,610 >> Yeah, yeah that'd be fine. 64 00:03:01,610 --> 00:03:07,430 >> Okay, overall to start off with, looks like we have some 65 00:03:07,430 --> 00:03:10,280 sort of customization of the word length that we want to look for. 66 00:03:10,280 --> 00:03:10,780 >> Mm-hm. Yeah. 67 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:14,650 >> We have some kind of variability in 68 00:03:14,650 --> 00:03:17,880 what we want to have as acceptable sentence structure. 69 00:03:17,880 --> 00:03:24,570 So, periods, question marks, semicolons, things like that. And, the end result 70 00:03:24,570 --> 00:03:27,260 to the student is if we're successful, they'll get the average number of 71 00:03:27,260 --> 00:03:31,060 words per sentence. Otherwise we tell them something a little bit helpful to 72 00:03:31,060 --> 00:03:33,240 kind of put them on the right track to use the tool correctly. 73 00:03:33,240 --> 00:03:34,620 >> Yeah that's the error codes right? 74 00:03:35,850 --> 00:03:38,150 >> Hopefully not error codes but something a little bit nicer. 75 00:03:38,150 --> 00:03:39,800 >> [LAUGH] Okay. 76 00:03:39,800 --> 00:03:41,150 >> So I think I have enough to 77 00:03:41,150 --> 00:03:43,440 get started and produce something that's you know, 78 00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:47,150 a reasonable I guess, rough draft. Of something 79 00:03:47,150 --> 00:03:48,700 that you can use to help your class out. 80 00:03:48,700 --> 00:03:49,590 >> Great. Thank you. 81 00:03:49,590 --> 00:03:50,240 >> Thank you.