genre recognition of history and fiction

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ELSEVIER Poetics 22 (1994) 409-421

POETICS

Genre recognition of history and fiction *

Malcolm Hayward *

Department of English, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA 15705, USA

Abstract

This paper describes an experiment testing the ability of readers to recognize the genre of a work given very small samples (5 to 15 words) of randomly selected passages of history or fiction. The high degree of accuracy - 79.2% correct responses at 5 words, for example - suggests that genre is deeply embedded in the work and recognizable at the micro-level of the text. The ability to recognize genre was found to be independent of the subject’s educational level, but dependent on the genre itself: fiction was more recognizable than history. A second run of the experiment was coupled with a survey seeking to determine what subjects look for in guessing genre. The second run validated the results of the first experiment; the survey found tone to be a major factor in the decision processes of the subjects.

1. Introduction

Writers seldom confuse their intentions concerning genre. Historians set out to write history, novelists plan to write fiction. Yet this leaves open the question of how readers recognize genre. Certainly there are external cues or paratextual markers. Publishers label works as novels or histories, either in the title or on the title page; works are categorized by booksellers and librarians and located in separate, appropriate places (see Jauss, 1982; Schuur and Seegers, 1989). Readers generally know, when picking up a book, just what kind of a book they are about to open. Yet in the absence of such paratextual markers, what would it take for a reader to recognize a genre? Are there textual elements by which readers could tell a genre at a glance? The ability of readers to recognize a genre with a

* This paper has benefitted from the comments of three anonymous reviewers, for which I express my sincere gratitude.

* E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]

0304-422X/94/$07.00 0 1994 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSDZ 0304-422X(94)00015-X

410 M. Hayward /Poetics 22 (1994) 409-421

randomly chosen very small sample of text would indicate that writing styles are genre-specific, with generic markers that are extremely local. I explore this issue by an experiment which proves that readers can accurately identify genre with very limited samples of text. A follow-up study examines the question of what readers look for when asked to identify a genre.

In this experiment I focus on two somewhat related genres, history and fiction. While one genre of genre theory itself is the history of that theory (see, for example, surveys by Cohn, 1990; Fishelov, 1991; Fowler, 1982; Hauptmeier, 1987; and Ryan, 1981>, I will briefly review only those aspects of the theory related to genre recognition and comparative analyses of history and fiction.

Theories of genre recognition usually approach the topic by identifying features associated with one particular genre and not with a corresponding, similar genre. For example, history and fiction share certain narrative modes and conventions, but may be differentiated by the ways these are implemented or by the presence or absence of certain formal features. Dorrit Cohn surveys the distinctions between fiction and non-fiction seeking “narratological criteria of fictionality” (1990: 776). While Searle (1975) and White (1978) conclude, in Cohn’s words, that “fictional and nonfictional narratives are look-alikes” (1990: 7841, Cohn draws upon the work of Hamburger (19571, Ricoeur (1980, 1984-88), Genette (1980, 19881, and others to explore distinctions between the two genres from a narratological perspective (see also Cohn, 1989, on the relationship between biography and fiction). Like Cohn, Genette focusses on narratological features, particularly the author-narrator relationship, to distinguish fictional from factual writing, although he notes as well that “The ‘indices’ of fiction are not all of a narratological order, mainly because they are not all of a textual order; more often, and perhaps increasingly often, a text signals its fictionality by parutextual markers which are a safeguard against misapprehension” (Genette, 1990: 770). Prince also notes the potential ambiguity inherent in a focus on textual elements as determinative of the genre; Prince concludes, “there is no algorithm which, on the basis of textual factors, enables one to differentiate, in a narrative corpus, fiction from truth, error, or lying” (Prince, 1991: 5471.

Perhaps because of these textual ambiguities, the comparative approach has been useful in examining postmodern works which intentionally cross over or blend genres, as described in Linda Hutcheon’s essay, ‘ “The pastime of past time”: Fiction, history, historiographic metafiction’ (1988; see also McCord, 1986; Sea- mon, 1983). Hutcheon suggests that modern and postmodern works may display considerable overlap between history and fiction. While recognizing that there are obvious differences in the types of discourse represented by the two genres, she points out that “they share social, cultural, and ideological context, as well as formal techniques” (1988: 60).

Recent comparative theorists, therefore, such as Cohn, Genette, Prince, and Hutcheon, have attempted to broaden the areas of discussion beyond traditional formal analyses to include narratological stances and cultural and ideological contexts, while at the same time downplaying the role of formal features in the analysis of genre. Prince (1990), for example, argues the need to understand the

M. Hayward /Poetics 22 (1994) 409-421 411

wide range of taxonomic principles that may be applied to narrative genres. This broader context is seen too in the work of Fishelov (19911, who argues that traditional discussions of genre often adopt a rigid, prescriptive approach, identifying prototypes and a fixed set of criteria or defining characteristics by which to measure the genre as a whole or to place a particular work inside or outside of that genre. A more open system of categorization is available through Wittgenstein’s theory of family resemblances. In this view, members of a genre share a certain number of family features - though not all members share all features and no one feature serves as a defining term for that genre. To carry the metaphor further, one might posit the presence of both genetic features, traits which in some way derive from the essence of the genre, and elements of a cultural inheritance, which might be seen as shared external features. A related approach is by way of insights into text analysis and script and schema theory available in cognitive psychology or frame theory (see, for example, Verdaasdonk, 1982). Fishelov cites Eleanor Rosch’s research on the structure of categories as a possible model for blending the concepts of family resemblance and prototypes (1991: 131; see also Chatman, 1978; Lindemann, 1988; and Olson et al., 1981).

My study is not directly concerned with identifying the nature of the two genres or determining exactly which isolatable features mark history or fiction. Yet proving that readers can identify from which genre an extremely short segment of text came will provide empirical evidence that there are certain features associated with particular genres and that these features extend down to the micro-level of the text. Readers can reconstruct an appropriate frame for the discourse with a minimal amount of text. This approach does not directly evaluate the findings of Cohn, Genette, and Prince concerning the narratological analysis of genre: author-narrator distinctions, for example, or voice and mode, as these may be found at the micro as well as the macro level of the text. Whether the reader recognizes certain genetic or cultural family resemblances, as Fishelov suggests, or whether the reader responds to particular linguistic cues in the text will not be directly at issue here. I will assume that there may be a range of determining and discriminat- ing features involved in the decision-making process, with no single feature sufficient to identify a genre in all cases. Some features may serve partially to determine a genre (such as the use of a personal name in fiction) and some may discriminate (the tone may suggest the work is not fiction). A reader will then rely on a “fuzzy fit” - when enough characteristics are found to suggest a genre, the decision will be made. I address this question to a limited extent in the second part of my experiment.

2. The experiment

2.2. Materials

The experiment is based upon works from fiction and history. These genres seemed appropriate because they share a number of features: both are prose

412 M. Hayward/Poetics 22 (1994) 409-421

narrations of events dealing with human behavior within a particular cultural or social context. Yet they are quite different in intention. I chose samples from each of twenty randomly selected works of fiction and twenty works of history, with the limitations that the works be by American authors, written between 1900 and 1975, that there would be no works which crossed genres (such as historical novels, postmodern novels, biographies, memoirs, diaries, and so on), and that there would be no works by well-known authors likely to be recognized. ’ I selected from each of these works a 15-word passage, starting with the beginning of a sentence on page 100, line 10, or the next line on which a sentence began, with the restriction that the passage not be from quoted material different in kind from that of the book (such as a quotation from a source>. Scores on a pre-test of 20 randomly selected passages, using 15 subjects, suggested that 15 words would be sufficient in most cases for the identification of genre.

2.2. Procedure

On a computer I presented 45 subjects with 5 to 15 words from each of the passages, the number of words being randomly selected for each passage for each subject, and the order of the passages having been previously randomized. The subjects included 11 undergraduate English majors, 29 graduate students in English (5 in masters programs and 24 in doctoral programs), and 5 English Department faculty members, all at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I asked subjects to identify as best they could whether the passage was from a work of history or a work of fiction. The experiment was not timed but was self-paced; the subjects could consider a passage for as long as they wished. The subjects then made a forced choice (history or fiction) after reading the passage on the computer screen, pressing H or F to indicate their choice. After the choice was made, the next passage was displayed. Subjects did not have the chance to go back and review previously displayed passages. At the end of the test, the total number of correct and incorrect responses was displayed, but no feedback was given to subjects on their responses to individual items as they were presented.

2.3. Results

The results showed a generally high and steady ability to recognize genre. As Table 1 indicates, even with only 5 words, subjects were able to identify passages correctly 79.2% of the time. The scores tend upward with the number of words available, to a high of 91.6% at 14 words. Yet the percentages correct at 10 words (77.9%), 11 words (80.6%) and 15 words (82.2%) indicate that the correlation

’ To achieve the effect of randomization, I selected from the university library’s stacks a book from the far left side of the second shelf from the top of each bookcase. If the book did not fit the criteria

noted, I proceeded across the shelf until reaching a book which did fit the criteria, and then proceeded to the next bookcase.


Table 1

Percentage of correct responses by genre per number of words displayed, first run

Genre of

passage

Number of words displayed

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

History 74.7 65.0 74.0 72.1 77.8 68.5 69.1 79.2 78.3 84.8 72.6

Fiction 83.7 83.5 84.3 88.1 83.1 89.2 91.7 90.4 95.1 97.7 89.7

Both genres 79.2 74.2 79.6 79.1 80.5 77.9 80.6 84.7 86.6 91.6 81.8

between the number of words and the ability to recognize a passage’s genre is, while a significant one, as measured by a t-test (I, = O.OOl>, not necessarily a simple one. The high percentage of correct responses at only five words indicates that genre is a quality that is deeply embedded in a work. From this it may be concluded that almost any individual sentence in a work of fiction or history bears within itself a least some distinguishing features of the genre from which it came.

Is one genre more readily identifiable than another? History proves to be more difficult to spot than fiction. Readers correctly identified a text as being from a work of fiction 88.8% of the time, overall, while historical works were correctly identified as history 74.1% of the time. The difference is significant to the 0.001 level of probability, as measured by a t-test. As fiction is only rarely mistaken for history, it may be concluded that sentences from works of fiction bear within themselves more clearly recognizable clues to their identity than do works of history - or, alternatively, readers are more attuned to recognizing fictional markers, perhaps from greater experience with the genre.

When a passage from a work of history is incorrectly identified as being from a work of fiction, there may be certain cues to which readers respond in order to make that misidentification. Four passages from histories were incorrectly identified more often than not as fiction. The percentage rate of correct responses appears in parenthesis following the items:

8.

20.

25.

38.

This trivial fact - who among us would be able to recall something like this? - not (37.8%) Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Duane, after repeatedly claiming throughout March that the administration had no intention (40%) An Irishman met Ed Thompson in Corinth a few days later and quipped, “We went (33.3%) They are bound to remind themselves constantly, as are those who seek to instruct them (46.7%)

These four items alone account for 42% of the incorrect responses to the 20 historical items. It is worth noting that two of the items (20 and 25) contain a personal name within the first 5 words of the passage; perhaps in the absence of other cues, this name is enough to signal fiction. Passage 8 contains direct address to the reader, a technique that might be associated with the writing of fiction. On

414 h4. Hayward/Poetics 22 (1994) 409-421

the other hand, one history passage (29) was correctly identified 100% of the time, and two others (17, 39) were only misidentified once:

17. At the close of the Civil War the population of the region beyond the Mississippi (97.8%)

29. North Carolina loyalism presents a special case. The most important cause of cleavage was the (100%)

39. Nevertheless, the sentiment for independence was slowly gaining headway in the latter part of 1775 (97.8%)

None of the three passages contains a personal name or direct address, while all three contain references to historical concepts early in the passage (the Civil War, North Carolina loyalism, and sentiment for independence). In the second part of the experiment I address more directly the issue of reasons for the choices made.

As with the group overall, in cases of all passages from history, the number of words available did not in all cases make a clear difference in the scores of the subjects. With 5 words available, subjects identified the passages correctly 74.7% of the time, as compared with 72.6% for 15 words. The highest scores were recorded, however, at 14 words, with 84.8% of the passages being correctly identified, as seen in Table 1.

In comparison with passages from works of history, passages from fiction were rarely misidentified. There is a direct relationship between number of words and percentage of correct responses, with the peak number of correct responses, 97.7%, again at 14 words - although two of the passages were correctly identified as fiction 100% of the time:

16. Supper was quickly over. Josh bolted his pie, swallowed his milk, and hurriedly took his

35. He clapped his hands and cheered, like one cheering the chariots in the circus. “He

While passages from fiction were rarely misidentified, some gave more problems than others. The four most frequently mistaken passages, with the percentage of correct responses in parenthesis, are as follows:

3. If blending the necessary purposes of youth with an unconscious urgency, he had everywhere and (64.4%)

15. It was a miniature of the cyclonic tempest which had driven him to raging tears (64.4%)

33. My references are good, there was not a fault in them when I came here (77.7%)

36. Bates was attending to that department, but he hadn’t had time to do much so (75.5%)


It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what indicated to some subjects that these were works of history. One possibility is sentence length. Although all passages ended at fifteen words, preventing an awareness of true sentence length, only two of the history passages contained full stops, while twelve of the passages of fiction contained complete sentences within the fifteen lines. One contained two complete sentences, in fact. The four often misidentified passages from fiction cited above are all from sentences longer than the fifteen-word cut-off point, whereas passage 16, always identified correctly, contains a complete sentence in the first four words. The factor of sentence length would, however, only be in effect in those cases in which most or all of the 15 words were presented, while in the passages cited the majority of errors were made when fewer words were presented.

One might expect more sophisticated readers - those with a greater literary expertise - to be more sensitive to genre differences and hence to achieve higher scores. This was not the case. Demographically, the subjects fell into five groups, all of whom were specializing in literature: up to 60 college credits (lo), 60 credits to graduation (l), masters students (51, doctoral students (241, and faculty members (5). There were no significant differences among the groups; students in the first category scored almost as highly (80% correct) as faculty (80.5%). Even beginning students in literature respond accurately to these generic markers. This suggests that the clues available to the reader in terms of the technical, stylistic devices that a writer uses or the content, to the extent that content may be discerned in these limited samples, are to some extent obvious markers - even if their obviousness does not result in a direct, conscious apprehension of their nature. I had also asked for gender as part of the demographic information, but no significant differences were noted in abilities to identify genre.

3. The survey

3.1. Materials

In order to examine more closely the role played by the readers’ expectations of genres and the processes by which readers arrive at their decisions, I repeated the experiment with a second group of 39 subjects. Prior to this second run of the experiment, I interviewed 15 additional subjects during and after taking the test, asking them to speak aloud their reasons for making choices. Their responses were then grouped to form a 15-item survey, to be rated on a five-point Likert-type scale, on the importance subjects attributed to different factors in making their decisions. This survey was added to the program and directly followed the test of 40 items.

3.2. Results

The results of the experiment were consistent with those of the first group. Although this second group of subjects consisted of non-English majors from three


Table 2 Percentage of correct responses by genre per number of words displayed, second run

Genre of Number of words displayed

passage 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

History 65.3 67.2 73.3 71.4 73.0 79.7 81.7 70.9 78.5 76.0 74.2

Fiction 77.2 76.6 78.7 85.5 85.7 79.5 85.3 85.5 77.8 89.6 93.4

Both genres 72.0 71.9 75.7 78.0 79.5 79.6 83.5 77.3 78.1 82.4 85.4

sections of a general education course, the overall score of 78.5% correct was in line with the mean score of college English teachers, 80.5% correct. Again, no statistically significant differences were found for gender or educational level. There were, as before, significant differences by genre (p = O.OOl>, with history being more likely to be guessed wrong than fiction. Likewise, the number of words was a significant determiner of the accuracy of genre recognition (p = O.OOl), with an increase in the percentage of correct responses from 5 to 15 words. The results by genre and passage length are displayed in Table 2. This run of the experiment thus validated the conclusions of the first test and further indicated that, while a special expertise in literary skills might improve slightly a respondent’s ability to recognize genre, that ability is inherent in most educated readers.

The survey which followed the test attempted to define what qualities a subject looked for in making his or her decision on genre. A comparison of the ratings on the survey to the scores (correct or incorrect) found 3 of the survey items to be significantly related at the p = 0.001 level; the mean rating on a 5-point Likert-type scale (“not important at all” to “extremely important”) is cited in parenthesis: “quoted dialogue indicates fiction” (3.000), “a melodramatic tone indicates fiction” (3.282), and “there is a different tone for history and fiction” (3.462). Other positively correlated (0.01 level of significance) items were “punctuation helps to distinguish between fiction and history” (2.923), “first names indicate fiction” (2.949), “first person indicates fiction” (3.3081, and “fictional fragments are more conversational” (3.333). Four items were negatively correlated with scores, however, and these all relate to the identification of passages from history. In this inverse relationship, higher ratings for these survey items are associated with lower test scores. The four items are: “personal references or events are more likely to be historical” (3.487), “writing in the past tense indicates history” (2.590), “technical words indicate history” (2.8211, and “history uses simple or common language” (2.744). All were significant to the 0.01 level.

The results of the testing found that subjects in this second run had the greatest difficulty with the same four sentences from works of fiction as those in the first run (percentages of correct responses follow in parenthesis): 3 (69.2%), 11 (71.8%), 15 (69.2%), and 33 (71.8%). It might be noted that none of the four items contains quoted dialogue or first names and only one (33) contains a first person reference. Thus some of the expected markers of fiction are absent.

Three of the history passages most often wrongly identified were the same as those of the first group (the percentage of correct responses follows in parenthesis):


20 (43.6%), 25 (48.7%), and 38 (38.5%). The second group, however, misidentified passage 26 more often than not:

26. This valiant knight-errant of the status quo, whose keen-edged political sword did more than that (43.6%)

As noted above, two of the misidentified passages (20, 25) contain first names and one (25) contains quoted dialogue (in the last three words), which might suggest fiction. Passage 26 employs what might be termed a melodramatic tone, again suggesting fiction. Finally, three of the passages (20, 26, 38) are in the present tense or lack a tense marker and thus lack one of the indicators used (albeit ineffectively) to distinguish history from fiction.

The remaining items on the survey were not significantly related to the scores: “historical names/ places indicate history” (3.9741, “descriptive words indicate fiction” (2.8211, “dry or factual fragments indicate history” (3.2051, and “historical fragments are similar to news articles” (3.282). In summary, what seems to work best for determining the difference between history and fiction is related to the tone of the sentence, particularly if it is melodramatic or conversational, employs dialogue, is written in the first person, and includes the use of first names. However, these elements only work well when seen as positive markers of fiction; when they occur in a fictional passage, they can be used to identify that passage as fiction. However, when they occur in a work of history, these markers are misleading. What does not work well, particularly in identifying a work as being from the genre of history, is a focus on individual words or the level of diction. This is not to say that there are not differences in diction between history and fiction, but rather that, for readers, the words by themselves do not serve as clear markers to distinguish between the two genres. One interesting result is that a sense of tone, which seems to be at the heart of the process of identification and clearly related to the nature of the genre, may be derived from a very few words, though the particular words themselves may not, individually, be genre-specific.

4. Summary and discussion

While this experiment offers no definitive answer to the question of what allows a reader to distinguish between a passage from a work of fiction and a passage from a work of history, it does show that readers can make those distinctions with remarkable accuracy given even very small samples and no other contextual or paratextual cues. This finding allows several significant conclusions to be drawn. First, the genre of a work extends down to the micro-level of prose style, and presumably affects the wording or structuring of even very small units of writing. The formal techniques of writing within a genre are, at the level of the sentence, very much bound to that particular genre. While the two genres may overlap, their differences are significant enough to serve as telling markers to each genre. Without denying that fictional or historical techniques might be appropriately used

418 M. Hayward/Poetics 22 (1994) 409-421

in either genre, the results suggest that in practice there are exceptionally local effects specific to each genre. Second, readers are sensitive to these generic differences and are able to hypothesize correctly much of the time on the genre of a work. Moreover, such sensitivity does not seem particularly isolated to very experienced readers, but exists at a fairly sophisticated level across a range of reading skills. Part of every reader’s competency in approaching a text seems to be a sensitivity to tonal differences which signal a specific genre. It might be worthwhile exploring when and how readers acquire this competency, for certainly it is not one readers are specifically taught. Readers, perhaps even very inexperi- enced readers, gain a tacit understanding of generic markers and can interpret these clues appropriately. Such a skill might be based upon a recognition of particular formal characteristics which make up the text, but it might also arise from a hypothesis formed by the reader regarding the author’s stance towards the reader. Both of these qualities, the form and the author’s point of view, are related to the tone of a work and hence, presumably, to its genre. This study does not deny the existence of narratological or ideological factors operating within the genres of history and fiction, but it does, I believe, suggest that generic differences are in evidence consistentl;l throughout a text and are part of every reader’s experience of the text at every point in his or her reading.

Finally, the general approach taken in this study may have implications for research directions in genre analysis. As Mary Gerhart points out (1989: 369): “There is a need for an inclusive epistemology which illuminates equally the role of specificity . . . and the role of abstraction” in defining literary genres. Much that is important in understanding a literary genre is abstract, non-quantifiable; gaining insight into the nature of genre from a range of critical postures (feminism, deconstruction, cultural criticism, and new historicism, for example) is particularly valuable, for it broadens both the individual critical approach and the ways genre is viewed generally. An empiricist approach, however, with its emphasis on specificity, may generate results which could be incorporated within other critical perspectives, pointing out directions for future research, such as in the area of formal techniques, and providing a test for elements of genre that may be isolated and quantified. There are ways within any critical position to reach the ‘inclusive epistemology’ Gerhart calls for and to bridge the division between specifics and abstractions.

Appendix A: Test passages

1. Fiction “There may be more killings like that. Don’t you want us to stop them?” She 2. History In the for-profit sector, the danger of institutional autonomy would be avoided

through separating boards 3. Fiction If blending the necessary purposes of youth with an unconscious urgency, he

had everywhere and 4. Fiction Good! They wouldn’t be here when Artie came. And the image was upon him,

of


5. History In New York, the frontier advance was held back by the power of the Iroquois 6. Fiction By the time he’d had dinner and driven out to the house, it was usually 7. History From Terre Haute to Vandalia, its western terminus, the road was merely a

dirt highway 8. History This trivial fact - who among us would be able to recall something like this? -

not 9. Fiction Nothing was openly spoken. But a snatch of highlife tune was whistled and an

answering 10. History By the end of JFK’s first year in the White House, business spokesmen were

becoming 11. Fiction Debt paid, he reached out, but he had underestimated the cruelty of Sr.

Aleman, who 12. History With a shrewd and irrefutable report on the inadequacies of the West Point

defenses he 13. Fiction Relief ran through me. “Is that all! Rosanna, I thought he was dead. Good

Heavens 14. History The careful survey made by the Missouri Association for Criminal Justice, to

take an instance 15. Fiction It was a miniature of the cyclonic tempest which had driven him to raging tears 16. Fiction Supper was quickly over. Josh bolted his pie, swallowed his milk, and hurriedly

took his 17. History At the close of the Civil War the population of the region beyond the

Mississippi 18. History The distinction between what the Supreme Court chose to call incorporated

and unincorporated territories seems 19. History Hennings intimated his intentions in a speech to the Law Club of Chicago in

March 20. History Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Duane, after repeatedly claiming throughout

March that the administration had no intention 21. Fiction Because the word on him among most church folks was always the same: he

had 22. Fiction “What is it, after all, to die?” Father Parry had said. “It is to say 23. Fiction There wasn’t a thing I could do to prevent it, for, having got himself up 24. Fiction He lay down again. But it was no good. His sleep was broken and he 25. History An Irishman met Ed Thompson in Corinth a few days later and quipped, “We

went 26. History This valiant knight-errant of the status quo, whose keen-edged political sword

did more than that

27. History For instance, James Roosevelt was past sixty when he became engaged in the organization of

28. History The hovels, the poverty and the oppression in which they had lived were forgotten. The

29. History North Carolina loyalism presents a special case. The most important cause of cleavage was the

30. Fiction They’re smug and sure of themselves and we get along all right as long as 31. Fiction “You must not have another fever like this one. I cannot get the Jesuit bark 32. Fiction For the first time in her life, she liked the talk in the tavern. No

33. Fiction My references are good, there was not a fault in them when I came here 34. History All the evidence is not in, but recent studies also indicate that cotton was

simply


35. Fiction He clapped his hands and cheered, like one cheering the chariots in the circus. “He

36. Fiction Bates was attending to that department, but he hadn’t had time to do much so 37. Fiction “I doubt it, sir,” said Dax. “From my own experience and from what I’ve been 38. History They are bound to remind themselves constantly, as are those who seek to

instruct them 39. History Nevertheless, the sentiment for independence was slowly gaining headway in

the latter part of 1775 40. History However much their confidence in Northern moderation had been shaken by

recent events, the majority

Appendix B: Survey questions

1. Quoted dialogue indicates fiction. 2. Historical names/places indicate history. 3. Punctuation helps to distinguish between fiction and history. 4. Fragments with first names indicate fiction. 5. Fragments written in first person (I) indicate fiction. 6. Personal references or events are more likely to be historical. 7. Fragments with a melodramatic tone indicate fiction. 8. Writing in the past tense indicates history. 9. Descriptive words indicate fiction.

10. Dry or factual fragments indicate history. 11. Technical words indicate history. 12. Fictional fragments are more conversational. 13. There is a different tone for history and fiction. 14. Historical fragments are similar to news articles. 15. History uses simple or common language.

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