The other day, Tom Chandler over at the Copywriter Underground posted a link to a beta project called the Typealyzer. What this bizarre sounding website does is attempt to diagnose the voice of a blog through the Jung / Myers-Briggs personality test. I say attempt, as Typealyzer isn’t exposing their methods and the results are incredibly fast – which seems to suggest that the program is simply scanning for repetition of certain keywords, which reduces the actually usefulness of the program to “neat.”
Your actual voice my differ
What got me to thinking, however, was the results I got from Typealyzer was not the same as the one I typically get from an Myers-Briggs test. So, I through my old personal blog at the Typealyzer and got not the expected results, but rather a repetition of the first results. Paper personality tests always had me pegged as an INFJ whereas this test, using a broad sample of my writing on a multitude of topics and a over a broad time, declared my written voice an ISTP. The differences here are rather substantial, but what caught my attention wasn’t the difference but the fact that there was a difference.
Yes, I am taking this test at face value, and yes, it’s safe to assume that is a mistake. But the question being begged is still valuable. When a writer is asked to find their voice, how often do we stop and consider how close that voice is to our actual personality? Furthermore, is that potential divorce a good thing?
It’s certainly a question I’ll have to get to at a later time.
Bradley Robb likes TV and books, and has an intense dislike for cinnamon. Once, Bradley stopped a Soviet T-60 with his middle finger. Bradley writes speculative fiction and edits Fiction Matters, and never really got the hang of talking about himself in the third person.
Same unexpected results here, Bradley: ESTJ, when I'm INTJ. Though when I ran my old personal blog through the analyzer, it came up with a different personality: ISTP.
I have to imagine that most blog writing (particularly the non-”personal”/diary type) leans ESTJ. Extroverted, because a blog is aimed outward, and usually *about* the outside world. S, because details and information are important, and more credible than intuitions. Thinking and judging, because blogs typically try to make sense of the world, as opposed to experiencing emotion with the world or simply leaving it as it is.
Oh, and no question is being “begged.” It's simply being raised. (Sorry, I can't help myself.)
Daniel, don't make me pull out the the rhetoric class forced upon us at the Academy. “Begging the question” is a form of rhetorical fallacy often called a circular argument. This is one of the favorite rhetorical fallacies used by politicians.
http://www.onegoodmove.org/fallacy/begging.htm
However, you are probably right, and I am technically incorrect in my use of the phrase…at this time.
I'd be happy if you pulled out what you learned in rhetoric class… then I wouldn't have to police your posts for improper uses of “begging the question.” You could always argue against me with, “I'm begging the question, because the question is being begged by me.”
Well, the origin of the phrase “begging the question” didn't actually have to do with the rhetorical fallacy, it was more of a chump move. Prior to a debate, each side would beg the other to dismiss certain questions ahead of time so that they debate could move along in a more timely fashion. Typically, these were matters of semantics, so that logical arguments could be grounded on a sense of truth. However, sometimes someone would be a real jerk and attempt to beg away the question that the debate revolved around.
In modern rhetoric, the term is more common in setting up a false argument.
Yikes, the coffee ain't kicking in today.
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