Analysis of Text-Analysis Syllabi: Building a Text-Analysis Syllabus Using Scaling

Abstract

In the last decade, text-analytic methods have become a fundamental element of a political researcher's toolkit. Today, text analysis is taught in most major universities; many have entire courses dedicated to the topic. This article offers a systematic review of 45 syllabi of text-analysis courses around the world. From these syllabi, we extracted data that allowed us to rank canonical sources and discuss the variety of software used in teaching. Furthermore, we argue that our empirical method for building a text-analysis syllabus could easily be extended to syllabi for other courses. For instance, scholars can use our technique to introduce their graduate students to the field of systematic reviews while improving the quality of their syllabi.