The arithmetic for one report
Voters demanded economic relief. Trump and Democrats face tough choices on how to deliver
89Few flagged expressions Wire copy: shown here but left out of the outlet's own score.
What was read
1090 words in the outlet's own voice, plus 14 in the headline. 16% of the text is in quotes. 18 attribution markers (such as "said" or "according to") found.
Scare quotes (a phrase of one to three words in quotation marks with no speaker in the same sentence): fiscal consolidation plan,
. Since method 3.1.0 their words count as the outlet's own.
Words found
- Word choice:
claimed
1 point Expression of doubt
in Tuesday's voting, he has claimed he is willing to work with - Raises the temperature:
sweeping
1 point Raises the temperature
The AP Voter Poll, a sweeping survey of the American electorate conducted - Attribution phrases:
experts say
2 points Vague attribution
Experts say after 2032, Warren said. she said.
Layer scores
Rates are counted points per 1,000 words of the story's own text. For a story longer than 200 words, the rate used is the average of the whole-story rate and the rate in its densest 200-word stretch, so neutral filler cannot dilute a loaded passage away. Score = 100 × (loaded end − rate used) ÷ loaded end, kept between 0 and 100. Headline words count only in the headline layer.
| Layer | Points | Words | Whole-story rate | Densest 200 words | Rate used | Scale | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Word choice | 1 | 1090 | 0.9 | 5.0 (words 1 to 200) | 3.0 | 0 to 40 | 93 |
| Temperature | 1 | 1090 | 0.9 | 5.0 (words 651 to 850) | 3.0 | 0 to 40 | 93 |
| Flagged attribution phrases | 2 | 1090 | 1.8 | 10.0 (words 891 to 1090) | 5.9 | 0 to 20 | 70 |
| Headline wording | 0 | 25 | 0.0 | headline only | 0.0 | 0 to 240 | 100 |
Densest stretch: Word choice, words 1 to 200 of 1090, with claimed
; Temperature, words 651 to 850 of 1090, with sweeping
; Flagged attribution phrases, words 891 to 1090 of 1090, with experts say
.
Shown, not scored: the headline's rate minus the rate of the story's first 80 words is 0.0 points per 1,000 words.
Overall
Weighted geometric mean of the layers that are established, with 10 added to each layer first and taken away at the end: (Word choice 93 + 10)0.4 × (Temperature 93 + 10)0.3 × (Flagged attribution phrases 70 + 10)0.2 × (Headline wording 100 + 10)0.1 − 10 = 89. Adding 10 means one layer at 0 lowers the total steeply without collapsing it. A weak layer pulls the total down.
Lowered the score most: Flagged attribution phrases.
Name-swap test: with party, politician and institution names swapped, this report's score moves by 0.0 points.
What a reader could check
| People named as sources | 3 (Holtz-Eakin, Marc Goldwein, Douglas Holtz-Eakin) |
|---|---|
| Unnamed sources | 0 (0% of all sources found) |
| Links to primary records (government, court, filings, PDFs) | 0 |
| Documents cited in the text (a report, bill, ruling, filing) | 0 |
| Checkable specifics (numbers and dates) | 12 |
| Data shown (a table or chart) | no |
| Correction or clarification noted | no |
What a reader could check, counted by published patterns. Shown beside the score, never part of it. How each count works
Checked against the official record
No vote count or bill number found in the text read.
Record of this measurement
Method 3.1.0, word-list fingerprint 807a17189402a416, read by text extractor version 4. Fingerprint of the text read: 40ace5b2e5035a91. Internet Archive copy nearest the time it was read. The text read was not kept (read before method 3.1.0, or from the feed only), so a later rule change can be applied only while the report is still in the outlet's feed.