Interesting things WCopyfind can do

WCopyfind finds shared language wherever it occurs, which makes it useful for much more than checking papers. Here are some uses people have found.

Compare news services

How often do different news outlets run the same wire story, or share headlines? Save their pages (or create internet shortcuts to them) in a folder, drag them all into the new documents list, and compare. WCopyfind shows which outlets share text and how much.

Pages that change every time they're loaded, like live news front pages, are best saved first, so the page WCopyfind compares is the same one it shows in the report.

Trace language into legislation

Researchers have used WCopyfind to look for lobbyists' and model-bill language appearing word for word in finished legislation. Put the bills in the new list and the suspected sources in the old list.

Find duplicate communications

Identical or near-identical messages from supposedly independent sources, such as letters, public comments, or reports from a conflict zone, stand out immediately when compared as a group.

Find duplicate files and chapters

One user downloads e-books in bulk, and sometimes gets both a whole book and its separate chapters. Comparing the collection shows which files are contained in others, so the duplicates can be deleted. Sorting the results by % of A puts the files that are entirely contained in another at the top.

Compare versions of a document

How much of a contract, policy, or manuscript survived from one draft to the next? Compare the versions, and the side-by-side page shows what stayed the same and where the new material is.

Find which words are most common

Make Vocabulary List (in More Options) counts every word in all the documents in both lists, most frequent first. Run it on a collection of news stories to see which people and topics are mentioned most, or on a student's papers to see their favorite words.

List the words two documents share

1. Put both documents in the new list, set Match phrases of at least to 1 word, turn on Brief report, and compare. The side-by-side page now contains only the shared words.
2. Clear the lists, add that pair's page (from the pairs folder of the report) to the new list, and choose Make Vocabulary List in More Options. The vocabulary lists the shared words with their counts. Each shared word is counted once for each document, so expect even numbers.

Check your own writing for pet phrases

Write a document containing the phrases you tend to overuse, put it in the new list and your own writing in the old list, and lower Report pairs that share at least so even one use is reported. For finding repetition within your own writing more generally, WCopyfind's companion WRepeatfind is made for exactly that.

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