Authorship attribution in a forensic context
This thesis develops a quantitative method for forensic authorship attribution. The principal constraint, that the method be scientific according to the Daubert criteria, necessitates that the conclusions drawn about authorship problems must be made to a known degree of certainty. In response, the theoretical part of the thesis establishes the criteria for a sound method in authorship attribution as relying on valid, reliable markers of authorship and the development of an explicit and specific sampling strategy. The main empirical part of the thesis draws potential markers of authorship from the literature and tests them against a specially constructed General Authorship Corpus. The resulting battery of reliable markers of authorship includes word and sentence length statistics and word-frequency measures. A series of worked examples with decreasing number of texts demonstrates the method and tests its limits, showing positive attributions where possible and no false attributions even when comparison data is limited. In addition to the development and application of the battery of valid, reliable markers of authorship, the role of stylistic idiosyncrasies in attribution is discussed and developed as a secondary
Grant, T. D.
Authorship attribution in a forensic context. This thesis develops a quantitative method for forensic authorship attribution. The principal constraint, that the method be scientific according to the Daubert criteria, necessitates that the conclusions drawn about authorship problems must be made to a known degree of certainty. In response, the theoretical part of the thesis establishes the criteria for a sound method in authorship attribution as relying on valid, reliable markers of authorship and the development of an explicit and specific sampling strategy. The main empirical part of the thesis draws potential markers of authorship from the literature and tests them against a specially constructed General Authorship Corpus. The resulting battery of reliable markers of authorship includes word and sentence length statistics and word-frequency measures. A series of worked examples with decreasing number of texts demonstrates the method and tests its limits, showing positive attributions where possible and no false attributions even when comparison data is limited. In addition to the development and application of the battery of valid, reliable markers of authorship, the role of stylistic idiosyncrasies in attribution is discussed and developed as a secondary
authorship attribution forensic context develops quantitative_method forensic authorship attribution principal constraint method scientific accord criterion necessitate conclusion_draw authorship problem must_make know degree certainty response theoretical part establish criterion sound method authorship attribution rely valid reliable marker authorship development explicit specific sample strategy main empirical part draw potential marker authorship literature test specially construct general authorship corpus result battery reliable marker authorship include word_sentence length statistic word_frequency measure series work example decrease number text demonstrate method test limit show positive attribution possible false attribution even comparison data limit addition development_application battery valid reliable marker authorship role stylistic idiosyncrasy attribution discuss developed secondary