Reply to Benoit and Laver

Lanny W. Martin and Georg Vanberg

Political Analysis, 2008, vol. 16, issue 1, 112-114

Abstract: We appreciate the positive reception of our transformation by Benoit and Laver (hereafter, BL), and we are grateful that they have incorporated it into the Wordscores package. Because their comment highlights a fundamental difference between the Martin-Vanberg (MV) and Laver-Benoit-Garry (LBG) approaches that is critical to the choice among transformations, we offer some brief comments that will allow users to make an informed decision regarding the appropriate use of the transformations. The central issue concerns comparisons between reference and virgin texts. As BL point out, researchers will often be interested in making such comparisons, and the LBG and MV transformations can yield substantially different results. In light of these differences, BL's primary suggestion is to focus analysis on the raw scores, which can be obtained for reference as well as virgin texts. We wholeheartedly agree with this prescription. In fact, it is precisely a concern for faithfully reporting the raw score information, while making it more intuitive, that motivates the MV transformation. As we show below, the MV transformation accurately reflects all and nothing but the information contained in raw scores. Therefore, “users [who] get eye strain” by looking at raw scores can safely substitute MV scores and be confident that the information provided is equivalent. The same will typically not be true of LBG scores.

Date: 2008
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