Word cloud analysis of Family Practice. Does the journal fulfil its editorial policy?
Robert Atenstaedt · Family Practice · 2023
Dear Editor, A word cloud is a visual depiction of individual word counts derived from written text.1 The more frequently the term is contained within the material being analysed, the bigger it appears in the picture generated. The process eliminates uncommon and grammatical words to ensure that the resulting image expresses the most significant terms.2 Word clouds are increasingly being used as analytical devices to provide a synopsis of the major themes contained within written material. As research tools, however, word clouds have some important limitations compared with more sophisticated research methods such as topic modelling.3 They treat each expression as a single analytical unit and therefore do not combine terms that have similar meanings, for instance “GP” and “GPs” and “Medical” and “Med.”2,4 If different words are used to express the same idea, such as the use of synonyms, then the word cloud will not truly reflect the themes of textual material. Furthermore, word clouds do not provide context or adjust for clustering or grouping of words, so the semantics of individual phrases may be lost.2,4