text:
ProShares Ultra S&P500 (the Fund), formerly Ultra S&P500 ProShares, seeks daily investment results that correspond to twice (200%) the daily performance of the S&P 500 Index. The S&P 500 Index is a measure of large-cap United States stock market performance. It is a float-adjusted market capitalization weighted index of 500 United States operating companies and real estate investment trusts (REITs) selected by the S&P U.S. Index Committee through a non-mechanical process that factors criteria, such as liquidity, price, market capitalization and financial viability. The S&P 500 Index is a price return index. Reconstitution occurs both on a quarterly and ongoing basis. The Fund takes positions in securities and/or financial instruments that, in combination, should have similar daily return characteristics as 200% of the daily return of the S&P 500 Index. The Fund's investment advisor is ProShare Advisors LLC.
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What is ProShares Ultra S&P500's stock symbol?
ProShares Ultra S&P500 trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)ARCA under the ticker symbol "SSO."
How often does ProShares Ultra S&P500 pay dividends? What is the dividend yield for ProShares Ultra S&P500?
ProShares Ultra S&P500 declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, March 20th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 21st will be paid a dividend of $0.2202 per share on Wednesday, March 27th. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 20th. View ProShares Ultra S&P500's Dividend History.
Has ProShares Ultra S&P500 been receiving favorable news coverage?
Media headlines about SSO stock have been trending positive this week, according to InfoTrie. InfoTrie rates the sentiment of press coverage by analyzing more than six thousand news and blog sources. The firm ranks coverage of companies on a scale of -5 to 5, with scores nearest to five being the most favorable. ProShares Ultra S&P500 earned a news sentiment score of 2.7 on InfoTrie's scale. They also assigned media stories about the real estate investment trust a news buzz of 1.0 out of 10, indicating that recent press coverage is extremely unlikely to have an impact on the company's share price in the immediate future.
What other stocks do shareholders of ProShares Ultra S&P500 own?
Based on aggregate information from My MarketBeat watchlists, some companies that other ProShares Ultra S&P500 investors own include NVIDIA (NVDA), Baidu (BIDU), Alibaba Group (BABA), UnitedHealth Group (unh), Micron Technology (MU), Netflix (NFLX), ProShares Short S&P500 (SH), Walt Disney (DIS), Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Intel (intc).
Who are ProShares Ultra S&P500's key executives?
Who are ProShares Ultra S&P500's major shareholders?
ProShares Ultra S&P500's stock is owned by many different of retail and institutional investors. Top institutional shareholders include Toth Financial Advisory Corp (0.31%), TD Ameritrade Trust Co (0.28%), GenWealth Group Inc. (0.17%), Brookstone Capital Management (0.13%), BKS Advisors LLC (0.13%) and WoodTrust Financial Corp (0.04%).
Which major investors are selling ProShares Ultra S&P500 stock?
SSO stock was sold by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter, including Brookstone Capital Management, BKS Advisors LLC, TD Ameritrade Trust Co and Harvest Investment Services LLC.
Which major investors are buying ProShares Ultra S&P500 stock?
SSO stock was purchased by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter, including WoodTrust Financial Corp, GenWealth Group Inc., PagnatoKarp Partners LLC, Silverleafe Capital Partners LLC, Toth Financial Advisory Corp, FNY Investment Advisers LLC and First Hawaiian Bank.
How do I buy shares of ProShares Ultra S&P500?
Shares of SSO can be purchased through any online brokerage account. Popular online brokerages with access to the U.S. stock market include Vanguard Brokerage Services, TD Ameritrade, E*TRADE, Scottrade, Fidelity and Charles Schwab.
What is ProShares Ultra S&P500's stock price today?
One share of SSO stock can currently be purchased for approximately $126.14.
How big of a company is ProShares Ultra S&P500?
ProShares Ultra S&P500 has a market capitalization of $2.66 billion.
What is ProShares Ultra S&P500's official website?
The official website for ProShares Ultra S&P500 is http://www.proshares.com/.
How can I contact ProShares Ultra S&P500?
ProShares Ultra S&P500's mailing address is 7501 Wisconsin Avenue Suite 1000, Bethesda, MD 20814, United States. The real estate investment trust can be reached via phone at +1-240-4976400.
MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about ProShares Ultra S&P500 and other stocks. Vote "Outperform" if you believe SSO will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote "Underperform" if you believe SSO will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days.

tokenized:
ProShares Ultra S&P500 ( the Fund ) , formerly Ultra S&P500 ProShares , seeks daily investment results that correspond to twice ( 200 % ) the daily performance of the S&P 500 Index . The S&P 500 Index is a measure of large - cap United States stock market performance . It is a float - adjusted market capitalization weighted index of 500 United States operating companies and real estate investment trusts ( REITs ) selected by the S&P U.S. Index Committee through a non - mechanical process that factors criteria , such as liquidity , price , market capitalization and financial viability . The S&P 500 Index is a price return index . Reconstitution occurs both on a quarterly and ongoing basis . The Fund takes positions in securities and/or financial instruments that , in combination , should have similar daily return characteristics as 200 % of the daily return of the S&P 500 Index . The Fund 's investment advisor is ProShare Advisors LLC .
 Sign - up to receive the latest news and ratings for SSO and its competitors with MarketBeat 's FREE daily newsletter .
 What is ProShares Ultra S&P500 's stock symbol ?
 ProShares Ultra S&P500 trades on the New York Stock Exchange ( NYSE)ARCA under the ticker symbol " SSO . "
 How often does ProShares Ultra S&P500 pay dividends ? What is the dividend yield for ProShares Ultra S&P500 ?
 ProShares Ultra S&P500 declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday , March 20th . Investors of record on Thursday , March 21st will be paid a dividend of $ 0.2202 per share on Wednesday , March 27th . This represents a $ 0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.70 % . The ex - dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday , March 20th . View ProShares Ultra S&P500 's Dividend History .
 Has ProShares Ultra S&P500 been receiving favorable news coverage ?
 Media headlines about SSO stock have been trending positive this week , according to InfoTrie . InfoTrie rates the sentiment of press coverage by analyzing more than six thousand news and blog sources . The firm ranks coverage of companies on a scale of -5 to 5 , with scores nearest to five being the most favorable . ProShares Ultra S&P500 earned a news sentiment score of 2.7 on InfoTrie 's scale . They also assigned media stories about the real estate investment trust a news buzz of 1.0 out of 10 , indicating that recent press coverage is extremely unlikely to have an impact on the company 's share price in the immediate future .
 What other stocks do shareholders of ProShares Ultra S&P500 own ?
 Based on aggregate information from My MarketBeat watchlists , some companies that other ProShares Ultra S&P500 investors own include NVIDIA ( NVDA ) , Baidu ( BIDU ) , Alibaba Group ( BABA ) , UnitedHealth Group ( unh ) , Micron Technology ( MU ) , Netflix ( NFLX ) , ProShares Short S&P500 ( SH ) , Walt Disney ( DIS ) , Exxon Mobil ( XOM ) and Intel ( intc ) .
 Who are ProShares Ultra S&P500 's key executives ?
 Who are ProShares Ultra S&P500 's major shareholders ?
 ProShares Ultra S&P500 's stock is owned by many different of retail and institutional investors . Top institutional shareholders include Toth Financial Advisory Corp ( 0.31 % ) , TD Ameritrade Trust Co ( 0.28 % ) , GenWealth Group Inc. ( 0.17 % ) , Brookstone Capital Management ( 0.13 % ) , BKS Advisors LLC ( 0.13 % ) and WoodTrust Financial Corp ( 0.04 % ) .
 Which major investors are selling ProShares Ultra S&P500 stock ?
 SSO stock was sold by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter , including Brookstone Capital Management , BKS Advisors LLC , TD Ameritrade Trust Co and Harvest Investment Services LLC .
 Which major investors are buying ProShares Ultra S&P500 stock ?
 SSO stock was purchased by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter , including WoodTrust Financial Corp , GenWealth Group Inc. , PagnatoKarp Partners LLC , Silverleafe Capital Partners LLC , Toth Financial Advisory Corp , FNY Investment Advisers LLC and First Hawaiian Bank .
 How do I buy shares of ProShares Ultra S&P500 ?
 Shares of SSO can be purchased through any online brokerage account . Popular online brokerages with access to the U.S. stock market include Vanguard Brokerage Services , TD Ameritrade , E*TRADE , Scottrade , Fidelity and Charles Schwab .
 What is ProShares Ultra S&P500 's stock price today ?
 One share of SSO stock can currently be purchased for approximately $ 126.14 .
 How big of a company is ProShares Ultra S&P500 ?
 ProShares Ultra S&P500 has a market capitalization of $ 2.66 billion .
 What is ProShares Ultra S&P500 's official website ?
 The official website for ProShares Ultra S&P500 is http://www.proshares.com/.
 How can I contact ProShares Ultra S&P500 ?
 ProShares Ultra S&P500 's mailing address is 7501 Wisconsin Avenue Suite 1000 , Bethesda , MD 20814 , United States . The real estate investment trust can be reached via phone at +1 - 240 - 4976400 .
 MarketBeat 's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about ProShares Ultra S&P500 and other stocks . Vote " Outperform " if you believe SSO will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term . Vote " Underperform " if you believe SSO will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term . You may vote once every thirty days .


text:
The IT manager of the Estonian branch of an international logistics company where we had done several IT infrastructure-related work left the company. Due to a mission-critical ongoing integration project of IT applications there was no time to find a new specialist. We were asked to take over the role of IT management and the management of the integration project.
During the takeover it soon became clear that the scope of work was big and different competencies were required, so a person fulfilling the role of the IT manager and a support tech started to work with our client. Initially, our client estimated the length of our support to be 2–3 months; eventually, it emerged into a two-year contract until the corporation finished reorganization for centralized IT support. During the project, we represented the company with their clients and partners and were accountable to the IT department of the corporation.
We worked closely together in the project with the participating employees of the company to map the work processes in order to define specific tasks to the developer for setting up the integration solution. In addition, we organized and performed testing with third party developers and the employees of the company.
We mainly provided on-site IT support where our role was to protect the interests of the Estonian branch, and problem-solving in cooperation with the IT unit of the corporation located in Finland and the IT manager of the Baltic States. One of the biggest projects was the network deployment in the new facilities of the Estonian branch and compiling network documentation.

tokenized:
The IT manager of the Estonian branch of an international logistics company where we had done several IT infrastructure - related work left the company . Due to a mission - critical ongoing integration project of IT applications there was no time to find a new specialist . We were asked to take over the role of IT management and the management of the integration project .
 During the takeover it soon became clear that the scope of work was big and different competencies were required , so a person fulfilling the role of the IT manager and a support tech started to work with our client . Initially , our client estimated the length of our support to be 2–3 months ; eventually , it emerged into a two - year contract until the corporation finished reorganization for centralized IT support . During the project , we represented the company with their clients and partners and were accountable to the IT department of the corporation .
 We worked closely together in the project with the participating employees of the company to map the work processes in order to define specific tasks to the developer for setting up the integration solution . In addition , we organized and performed testing with third party developers and the employees of the company .
 We mainly provided on - site IT support where our role was to protect the interests of the Estonian branch , and problem - solving in cooperation with the IT unit of the corporation located in Finland and the IT manager of the Baltic States . One of the biggest projects was the network deployment in the new facilities of the Estonian branch and compiling network documentation .


text:
Angry Baltimore Mom: Right or Wrong?
It’s apparent that Donald Trump will say, and likely, do anything in his quest to become president of the United States. He led the failed birther movement in questioning the citizenship of President Barack Obama, who is an American. He has referred to presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as a communist when Sanders is not. He said he’s going to make Mexico pay to build a wall along the southern border of the United States to keep illegal immigrants out. Mexico's president balked at the statement. Trump has encouraged his supporters to attack protesters at his campaign rallies and offered to pay the attackers' legal fees. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump's campaign isn't staging some of the protests at his rallies just to distract his supporters (and the media) so he won't have to expose his ignorance of domestic and international policy issues.
Trump's dog whistle politics deliberately lacks the typical subtlety GOP candidates, and their surrogates are known for. He has tapped into the anger and fear of "poorly-educated" white Americans. He used that term, and the number of his supporters seems to continue to increase. Go figure.
Let me translate Trump's slogan Let's Make America Great Again. The message...Let's make America White Again. Let's make America segregated again and put those minorities (and women) in their place. Please see MSNBC's Rachel Maddow's segment as she beautifully and skillfully exposes Donald Trump's Race War.
In spite of this madness, Donald Trump's Republican opponents have indicated they will support him if he is their party’s nominee. What does that say about them? There is an epic leadership fail in the Republican Party. They choose to destroy the United States of America. They choose politics over people even if the people are the "poorly educated" Republican voters or other men, women and children in the United States. Including you.

tokenized:
Angry Baltimore Mom : Right or Wrong ?
 It ’s apparent that Donald Trump will say , and likely , do anything in his quest to become president of the United States . He led the failed birther movement in questioning the citizenship of President Barack Obama , who is an American . He has referred to presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as a communist when Sanders is not . He said he ’s going to make Mexico pay to build a wall along the southern border of the United States to keep illegal immigrants out . Mexico 's president balked at the statement . Trump has encouraged his supporters to attack protesters at his campaign rallies and offered to pay the attackers ' legal fees . I would n't be surprised if Trump 's campaign is n't staging some of the protests at his rallies just to distract his supporters ( and the media ) so he wo n't have to expose his ignorance of domestic and international policy issues .
 Trump 's dog whistle politics deliberately lacks the typical subtlety GOP candidates , and their surrogates are known for . He has tapped into the anger and fear of " poorly - educated " white Americans . He used that term , and the number of his supporters seems to continue to increase . Go figure .
 Let me translate Trump 's slogan Let 's Make America Great Again . The message ... Let 's make America White Again . Let 's make America segregated again and put those minorities ( and women ) in their place . Please see MSNBC 's Rachel Maddow 's segment as she beautifully and skillfully exposes Donald Trump 's Race War .
 In spite of this madness , Donald Trump 's Republican opponents have indicated they will support him if he is their party ’s nominee . What does that say about them ? There is an epic leadership fail in the Republican Party . They choose to destroy the United States of America . They choose politics over people even if the people are the " poorly educated " Republican voters or other men , women and children in the United States . Including you .


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John L. Hilton is adjunct professor of statistics at Brigham Young University. This chapter is reprinted by permission, with slight alteration for clarification. First published in BYU Studies 30/3 (1990): 89—108.
In 1980 Wayne A. Larsen, Alvin C. Rencher, and Tim Layton published the first complete analysis of the Book of Mormon using the then adolescent tool of computerized stylometry, or wordprinting.1 They analyzed author-specific word-use rate to show that the purported authors in the Book of Mormon are statistically different—that not one but many authors contributed to the book. Since then the science of wordprinting has continued to undergo considerable critical evaluation, particularly in its application to the Book of Mormon.
Shortly after BYU Studies published Larsen, Rencher, and Layton’s pioneering work, I joined forces with a small group of scientists in Berkeley, California, who were attempting to verify the accuracy of wordprinting in general and to check the Larsen-Rencher-Layton results specifically. After seven years of study and development, we concluded that wordprint measurements are now at the stage where scholars can use such tests confidently and without personal bias to analyze contested authorship in many literary works, including the Book of Mormon. This paper explores our conclusion by (1) discussing some general ideas about wordprints and wordprinting, (2) reviewing some early wordprint studies in the evolution of wordprint science, (3) summarizing the development of a new measurement technique, including important control studies to verify the objectivity of that technique, and (4) setting forth some verified Book of Mormon measurements. Before proceeding, I will establish the need for wordprints for the Book of Mormon and also discuss one important caveat.
The need for rigorous, legitimate wordprint measurements is obvious in attempting to settle some of the most prominent controversies surrounding the Book of Mormon: Are the word patterns of Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, or Solomon Spaulding measurable in the Book of Mormon? Can wordprinting show that different sections of the Book of Mormon were written by different authors? Does Joseph Smith’s role as translator obfuscate patterns unique to ancient authors? Fortunately the Book of Mormon is a near-ideal document for such objective wordprint studies, provided the measurement is made correctly.
Of course, wordprint analysis, while it can measure certain facts objectively, cannot prove the holiness of the Book of Mormon. The understanding that the Book of Mormon has a divine origin is obtainable only by developing faith. Thus, while valid and objective wordprinting is no substitute for faith, wordprinting can, nevertheless, bolster the establishment of faith by rigorously demonstrating factual information about the book.
Wordprinting is a developing science, notwithstanding that the first written suggestions that something like wordprinting might be useful in objectively identifying authors appeared at least as early as 1851. Yet, because of the complexity of the measurements, the first credible studies had to await the availability of modern computers with their precise counting accuracy and high-speed computation. Therefore, wordprinting has undergone almost all of its significant development during the last thirty years.
Most modern wordprint techniques measure only the placement of “noncontextual” words. Noncontextual words like the, and, a, of, etc. are often capable of being interchanged or even dropped without a loss of overall meaning; they seem to add little in context information, often being consciously ignored by writer and reader alike. Obviously, measuring noncontextual words makes word-printing less sensitive to the subject matter. In addition, the technique improves statistical accuracy. Noncontextual words typically make up 20% to 45% of the total text, thereby providing a high number of statistical “events,” and the larger the statistical measurement is, the more reliable the results are. Wordprint measurements made from large numbers of noncontextual words continue to show that an author’s free-flow writings use these words in a habitual, nearly subconscious, unique way.4 However, if the author consciously imposes an external structure, the free flow of the author’s wordprint pattern is modified, and accurate wordprint measurements become more difficult to obtain.
Wordprinting measures the difference in the way noncontextual word patterns occur in two compared texts. Usually one of the texts is of disputed authorship while the other is by an author suspected of writing the disputed text. If the same word pattern is found to be statistically different between the two texts, we identify the difference as a rejection.5 The total of the rejections measured when the two texts are tested for a large number of word patterns is identified as the number of rejections. The larger the number of rejections, the more likely the disputed text was not written by the author of the other compared text. Thus, testing a contested document against comparable texts from all possible candidate-authors will identify the most likely writer by eliminating authors whose texts generate high numbers of rejections.
Finding the most likely writer depends on the word-printing technique’s accuracy. The accuracy (and usefulness) of a wordprint measuring technique critically depends on the statistical reliability in detecting which of its tested text pairs are not written by the same author. Statistical reliability is rigorously demonstrated by using the technique with a large number of control-author texts for the purpose of verifying the authorship of known texts. These texts correspond in size and include examples of the different literary parameters (genre, subject matter, writing period, position in an author’s career) that are to be studied later. The verifying measurements made between two control texts written by the same author are identified as within-author tests. The tests between texts written by different authors are called between-author tests. The statistical separation measured between the overall distributions of a large number of the within-author and between-author tests is the valid measurement of what will be expected when a contested author is later tested with the same technique. In other words, the difference between the number of rejections found between texts by the same author and texts by different authors will serve as a standard. This standard is used to evaluate the numbers of rejections found when testing texts of contested authorship.
Measuring the differences in word patterns between texts is the basic process of a wordprinting technique. Verifying such a technique, while straightforward in principle, is in practice very tedious. Thus, during the years of wordprinting development, many proposed wordprint measuring systems were verified only superficially on a narrow set of texts. Unfortunately, researchers often assumed that a wordprint measuring technique shown valid for one set of literary parameters would also be valid for all others. We now realize such assumptions are not valid; we must successfully verify each wordprint measuring methodology with control texts which represent all the literary parameters that are to be reliably measured later on.
Perhaps one of the earliest successful wordprint studies in the United States was the classical work by the statisticians Frederick Mosteller and David L. Wallace, who published their work on author identification in 1964.6 While not the first scholars to attempt computer-assisted stylo-metry, they published one of the first complete and internally consistent studies on a set of historically important documents. Their work convincingly identified the author of several anonymously published Federalist Papers. Mosteller and Wallace measured the rates at which simple, noncontextual words were used per 1000 words of text. This statistical model appeared adequately sensitive and valid to unambiguously show that James Madison was the author of the disputed documents. They showed that the other two possible candidate-authors were overwhelmingly excluded as authors of any of the twelve disputed documents.
The wordprint study on the Federalist Papers had several advantages which facilitated statistical measurements. First, the documents are lengthy, were written in the same genre on the same subject, and have essentially the same vocabulary. Additionally, for control texts Mosteller and Wallace were able to use uncontested writings by the suspected authors, writings which are of the same length, genre, subject, and vocabulary as the suspect texts. That the simple Mosteller and Wallace wordprint technique had been shown to be valid only for their single, nearly ideal class of texts was at first not appreciated as important.
Not all succeeding studies had documents that presented as favorable a situation as did that of Mosteller and Wallace. In addition, most later wordprinters did not execute their studies in such a thorough way. Many omitted any independent control studies to confirm that their wordprint techniques were valid for their given case. As a consequence, some published studies purportedly giving objective answers later proved to be inaccurate.
The first extensive wordprint measurements of the Book of Mormon appeared in 1978 when Alvin C. Rencher and Wayne A. Larsen began reporting their pioneering study in author identification. This work was followed by their complete report in 1980.9 They also coined the term wordprint, and introduced to Church and world scholars the interesting possibility of objective author identification in the Book of Mormon. They used information gained from earlier approaches and applied the simple noncontextual word-use rate of Mosteller and Wallace’s technique but coupled it with a powerful, multivariate statistical analysis.
Unlike previous studies which introduced the concept of hand-tabulated word measurements to the Book of Mormon,10 the 1980 wordprint study published by Larsen, Rencher, and Layton was widely recognized as important both within and without the Church.11 If the measurement technique was in fact objective and verifiable, any competent student could duplicate the calculations to determine answers to a number of questions that have remained controversial among Book of Mormon believers and detractors.
Along with others who found the reported work of the BYU team of Larsen-Rencher-Layton interesting and challenging was a small group of scientific researchers in northern California to which I belonged. Our group, later known as the Berkeley Group, included major contributors from different scientific disciplines and differing religious persuasions. All of us shared the scientific curiosity which led us to test the intriguing Larsen-Rencher-Layton claim. In the fall of 1980, we began our study. As the major LDS contributor in the group, I was little different from my agnostic and Jewish colleagues: each of us seriously questioned whether objective measurement could determine who did or did not write a controversial document like the Book of Mormon. Therefore, armed with a healthy skepticism, we began a confirmational study—the kind of study scientists typically perform in the physical sciences—to recalculate the wordprint measurements while correcting any procedural or calculational flaws which could potentially have confused the results of the original study.
During the time our Berkeley Group was doing its work, other Book of Mormon scholars were also studying the approach proposed by the Larsen-Rencher-Layton team. One of the most notable of these is the University of Utah statistician, D. James Croft. His work is that of a competent scholar as well as a conscientious believer in the divinity of the Book of Mormon. His published work is a carefully reasoned critique of the Larsen-Rencher-Layton paper.14 As would be expected from a scholar of the exact sciences, he cautioned his LDS readers about the unverified nature of the methodology: “Close scrutiny of the methodology of the BYU authorship study reveals several areas which seem vulnerable to criticism.” After calling for a redevelopment of methodology which could circumvent the specific areas he found questionable, he concludes, “Certainly any research done in the future will be indebted to Larsen, Rencher and Layton, who called our attention to an interesting and challenging area of Book of Mormon study. At the present time , however . . . it would be best to reserve judgment concerning whether or not it is possible to prove the existence of multiple authors of the Book of Mormon” (21).
We kept in close contact with Dr. Croft and others15 who were contributing to the continuing refinement of wordprinting during the years when our independent methodology was under development. We appreciated the continuing contributions of these scholars as they helped us insure that the suspect areas recognized in the earlier methodologies would be avoided and that the verification of our new wordprint measuring technique would be complete enough to insure reliable answers.
Our new conservative measurements incorporate six points which were not used in earlier Book of Mormon wordprint studies. These points contribute to improved reliability when 5000-word texts are tested. They are (1) measuring the author’s wordprint by studying the use rate of sixty-five noncontextual word-pattern ratios as proposed by Morton (1985); (2) abandoning the commonly accepted statistical assumption of “normality” of word distribution and instead using the Mann-Whitney nonparametric statistic, which does not require the unverifiable normality simplification; (3) developing a “wrap-around” word-group counting method which helps break apart clusters of similar words in the sampled text words (this method helps provide the statistically required word-group homogeneity); (4) making comparison measurements between just two texts at a time; (5) using the oldest extant Book of Mormon manuscripts (the texts used do not include the repetitive use of the phrase and it came to pass, nor do they include significant direct quotations from the King James Bible—including such text would distort the noncontextual word counts for each author); and (6) verifying the sensitivity of the computer coding and measurement methodology by measuring a diverse set of texts of nondisputed authorship which represent the appropriate literary parameters.
Deriving the model becomes relatively unimportant compared to designing the control studies which verify or disprove the validity of the method. For our control studies, we specifically chose a representative set of literary texts which would test the extremes found in English-language writings. When we tested these control texts, we found that our technique yielded well-defined, bell-shaped distributions, showing that our new wordprint technique is essentially insensitive to the textual changes introduced by the differing literary parameters of genre, subject matter, writing period, position in an author’s career, or normal publication editing.
Specifically, this extended verification study tested the validity of our model by calculating 325 diverse wordprint tests. These tests studied 26 noncontroversial 5000-word texts which had been written under various conditions by nine different control authors (see Appendix 3). The within-author and between-author results rigorously supported the basic wordprint assumption: although all authors have many writing habits in common, they each show measurably unique, stable rates for some noncontextual word patterns. Among the nondisputed documents that were used in the testing were texts by Oliver Cowdery and samples of Joseph Smith’s autographic and dictated writings.
The results of our verification tests are displayed in figure 1. Thirty-three of these tests are made by comparing texts written by the same author; 292 of the tests compared one author’s writing against that of another author. The black bars represent the 33 within-author measurements, which yield a statistically smooth distribution peaking at about 2 rejections, a result that is theoretically expected.19 The distribution peak for between-author comparisons is about 7 rejections. Therefore, about two-thirds of the true between-author measurements fall above even the extremes of the within-author distribution. This result means that when any 5000-word disputed text is tested against a known author’s comparable works and measures 7 or more rejections, the two texts are very likely not written by the same author.20 The lower the number of rejections, the greater the likelihood that the two texts were written by the same author; the higher the number of rejections, the more likely that different authors composed the two compared texts.
If we have only two 5000-word texts and their paired testing measures 1 to 6 rejections (as is expected for a true between-author pair in about one-third of the cases), we cannot assign authorship unambiguously because the within-author and between-author distributions overlap each other in this range. Similarly, for the few tests (about ten percent of the true within-author cases) that measure zero rejections, there is a high probability that the compared texts were written by the same author.
We wished to make the most conservative measurement possible; therefore we compared the two Book of Mormon authors who have the largest number of 5000-word texts. Further, even though our verification testing showed that our new wordprint measuring technique is not unduly sensitive to normal changes of genre, we still chose the more conservative comparison by testing only within the same literary form. Therefore, we selected for our critical Book of Mormon verification measurements three independent, 5000-word texts from the didactic writings of each of the two major purported Book of Mormon authors, Nephi and Alma. Those texts are the largest same-genre pair in the book. Besides eliminating any possible lingering concern that changing genre might artificially cause additional rejections, the use of the didactic genre has the advantage of essentially excluding the possibly troublesome phrase and it came to pass. This phrase is the only phrase used repetitively enough in the Book of Mormon to be troubling to wordprint measurements.
Our results are displayed starting with figure 2, which shows the distribution of the number of wordprint rejections for the six possible within-author tests of Nephi against Nephi and Alma against Alma. The within-author tests for both show the same distribution as the within-author tests of our control studies, shown in grey in figure 2.
Figure 3 is a plot of the rejection distribution calculated from the between-author tests of direct interest to the Book of Mormon authorship question. The black bars show the comparisons of the texts purportedly written by Nephi when tested against those purportedly written by Alma. The tests show the same relatively large number of rejections found in the between-author distribution in figure 1 (shown in figure 3 in grey), which was derived from the comparisons made between the texts of the different control authors.
Table 1 shows the measurements for the individual wordprint tests used in producing figures 2 and 3. Taking the comparisons of Nephi versus Alma, we found that in eight of the nine tests, 5 or more rejections resulted. Four of these tests produced 7, 8, 9, and 10 rejections. These four high-rejection tests (which yielded 7, 8, 9, and 10 rejections) independently measure a statistical confidence of greater than 99.5%, 99.9%, 99.99%, and 99.997% probability that the measured rejections show that the author’s patterns are very different consistent with Nephi’s texts having been written by a different author than wrote Alma.21 Therefore the Book of Mormon measures patterns of different authors according to its own internal claims.
By using a new wordprint measuring methodology which has been verified, we show that it is statistically indefensible to propose Joseph Smith or Oliver Cowdery or Solomon Spaulding as the author of the 30,000 words from the Book of Mormon manuscript texts attributed to Nephi and Alma. Additionally these two Book of Mormon writers have wordprints unique to themselves and measure statistically independent from each other in the same fashion that other uncontested authors do. Therefore, the Book of Mormon measures multiauthored, with authorship consistent to its own internal claims. These results are obtained even though the writings of Nephi and Alma were “translated” by Joseph Smith. We also described control studies of modern language academic translations where, in practice, a single translator can consistently preserve the unique wordprints of the several original authors he has translated.
Useful noncontextual word patterns meet the following conditions: they yield an unambiguous count, they occur frequently, they have common alternate expressions, their use rates tend to become habitual, and they are minimally affected by the period of the writer’s career, the subject matter, and the genre. Therefore, useful word patterns are typically made up of key words such as common articles, conjunctions, and prepositions. Measurements are calculated from the ratio of the overall key-word-use rate against the same key-word-use rate in certain sentence positions, word collocations, proportional pairs, or the use of key words adjacent to certain parts of speech and novel vocabulary words.
# represents the number of end of sentence markers fws represents the first word in a sentence lws represents the last word in a sentence 2nd lws represents the second to last word in a sentence fb means “followed by” pb means “preceded by” x represents any word r+l means that the word to the right and left are unique within the original 1000-word block.
The photonegative of the 1966 filming of the Book of Mormon printer’s manuscript was courteously supplied, without endorsement, by the History Commission of the RLDS Church. By October of 1982, a board of seven editors prepared a primitive Book of Mormon text using the following sources: (1) a computer file of the 1830 Palmyra first printed edition of the Book of Mormon developed in the BYU Language Research Center by L. K. Browning, (2) the photo-offset copy of the first edition printed by Wilford C. Wood, (3) a copy of the text of extant sections of the original dictation manuscript collected by L. K. Browning, and (4) the complete printer’s manuscript. The editors prepared a composite file of the oldest sections from each manuscript to complete a Book of Mormon text computer file which we named “The Most Primitive Book of Mormon Manuscript Text.” The editors also prepared and verified line headers which identified the apparent original author, the literary form, modern book, chapter, verse, and line notation for each line of text. Similar line headings are now published in Book of Mormon Critical Text: A Tool for Scholarly Reference, Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (hereafter cited as FARMS) STF-84aa, 3 vols. (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1984—87).
Does the Race of Man Love a Lord? an essay on American and European mores (1902) in The Complete Humorous Sketches and Tales of Mark Twain, ed. Charles Nelder (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1961), 686—96.
“Early Days,” a narrative (1875) in Mark Twain’s Autobiography (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1875), 81—123.
“Extracts from Adam’s Diary,” fanciful fiction, a spoofing translation, likely a satire on the Book of Mormon (1893) from “The Diary of Adam and Eve” in The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain, ed. Charles Nelder (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1985), 272—80, 288—94.
“Eve’s Diary (Translated from the Original),” companion to “Extracts from Adam’s Diary” (C. above), author attempting to write for two different people (1905), 281—8.
Written religious discourse and biographical essays from Messenger and Advocate (1830).
A second selection from the same article series as used in (A) (1830).
Life of William Shakespeare, an essay, only 3528 words (about 1770). Photocopy in possession of the author, original found in Yale Library.
The Number of the Beast, fanciful science-fiction narrative; first-person narrative chapters simulating the writing of his character Hilda (New York: Ballantine, 1980).
A second selection from The Number of the Beast, chapters simulating the first-person narrative of his character Deety (A. above).
The Rambler, first part of the newspaper essays (1750).
A second selection from The Rambler (1751).
The Idler, newspaper essays (1758).
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, a personal travelogue (1775).
A second selection from (D) above (1775).
The Fountains: A Fairy Tale, fanciful narrative (1766), only 4879 words (London: Elkin Mathews and Manot, 1927), 9—48.
Autographic letters to wife Emma, friends, and the Church (1834—38) in The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, comp. and ed. Dean C. Jessee (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1984).
A second selection from (A) above (1836).
Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith—History 1:1—75, dictated and carefully polished with the assistance of his clerks (1834—38).
“The Novella,” an essay, written in English, in Twelve German Novellas, ed. and trans. Harry Steinhauer (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), Introduction, ix—xxiii.
A second selection from (A) above plus 1000 words from (C) below (1977 and 1974).
Heine and Cecile Furtado: A Reconsideration, biographical essay, written in English, Modern Language Notes 89 (April 1974): 422—47.
Michael Kohlhaas, novella, written in German (about 1850), trans. Harry Steinhauer (1977—see VII. A. above).
A second selection from (A) above (about 1850).
A third selection from (A) above (about 1850).
Love and Friendship Tested, novella, written in German (about 1770), trans. Harry Steinhauer (1977—see VII. A. above).
A second selection from (A) above (about 1770).
1. For Larsen, Rencher, and Layton’s Book of Mormon wordprint study, see “Who Wrote the Book of Mormon? An Analysis of Wordprints,” BYU Studies 20 (spring 1980): 225—51.
2. For a detailed discussion of wordprinting single-authored texts with a few thousand words, see John L. Hilton and Kenneth D. Jenkins, “On Maximizing Author Identification by Measuring 5000 Word Texts” (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1987).
3. Works known to be written prior to computer-aided authorship are essentially immune. In principle one can argue that a modern, computer-assisted forger could manufacture a document capable of deceiving an authorship measurement. To attempt such a forgery would be an enormous task and would still leave the forger unsure beforehand as to which of all of the possible word patterns the wordprinter would ultimately use to test the manufactured document. Of course, such a fraudulent document would be susceptible to detection by the standard procedures now used to identify any pastiche.
4. To be a valid measurement, the words must be essentially the free-flow choice of the purported author. Extensive quoting of someone else’s words is different from free paraphrasing and, of course, tends to produce a wordprint closer to the pattern of the one being quoted. Further, deliberately writing to an externally imposed pattern which restricts the normal noncontextual word choices of the writer or repetitively using normally noncontextual words in textually important ways can also change the wordprint patterns. For an example of deliberate change in a wordprint, see Tim Hiatt and John Hilton, “Can Authors Alter their Wordprints? Faulkner’s Narrators in As I Lay Dying,” Selected Papers from the Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Symposium, ed. Melvin Luthy (Provo, Utah: Deseret Language and Linguistic Society, 1990). Examples of these wordprint problems found in the Book of Mormon are the extensive quotations from the King James Bible and the repetitive use of the phrase and it came to pass. Proper wordprint testing must take these special problems into account.
5. A rejection results from the statistical calculation of a null-hypothesis rejection (p<.05) for any one of the tested word patterns as the two texts are compared. A rejection is considered statistically useful only for word patterns that can be found five or more times in either of the compared 5000-word texts.
6. For the 1964 study, see F. W. Mosteller and D. Wallace, Inference and Disputed Authorship: The Federalist Papers (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1964); second edition published as Frederick Mosteller and David L, Wallace, Applied Bayesian and Classical Inference: The Case of the Federalist Papers (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1984).
7. Morton’s arguments for using word-pattern ratios instead of simple word-use rates are found in A. Q. Morton, Literary Detection: How to Prove Authorship and Fraud in Literature and Documents (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1978).
8. Kendra L. Lindsay, “An Authorship Study of the Pauline Epistles” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1986).
10. Perhaps the most significant of the precomputer studies was Glade L. Burgon’s “An Analysis of Style Variations in the Book of Mormon” (Master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1950).
11. Some publications that support Larsen, Rencher, and Layton’s work, besides those referenced in nn. 8 and 14, include New Era 9 (November 1979): 10—3, and Noel B. Reynolds’s Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on Ancient Origins, Religious Studies Monograph Series, vol. 7 (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1982).
Perhaps the latest neutral reference to their work, representing those in the scholarly community, would be Joseph Rudman at the Dynamic Text Conference, Toronto, Canada, 7 June 1989. In his presentation on authorship attribution in the literary computing session, Rudman noted their work as significant.
Among the anti-Book of Mormon references, likely the most extensive work provoked by the Larsen-Rencher-Layton study was an attempt at a wordprint measurement by Ernest H. Taves as reported in his book Trouble Enough: Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1984), 225—60. Unfortunately, the Taves study was fundamentally flawed as described in the critique of his work (John L. Hilton, “Review of Ernest Tares’ Book of Mormon Stylometry,” [Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1986]), and therefore did nothing to add to or detract from their work.
14. D. James Croft, “Book of Mormon ‘Wordprints’ Reexamined” Sunstone 6 (March—April 1981): 15—21.
15. Significant assistance was received from Yehuda Radday of the Department of General Studies, Technion University, Haifa, Israel; Kenneth R. Beesley, graduate student working with Sidney Michaelson and A. Q. Morton, University of Edinburgh, School of Epistemics, Edinburgh, Scotland; and A. Q. Morton, The Abbey Mannse, Culross, Fife, Scotland. Personal communications.
17. Subsequent to our study of the works of two German authors, we extended our work to include three more semiclassical German novella authors, all of whom had been translated by the same German-to-English translator, Harry Steinbauer. All of our new measurements gave the same results as before: each German author’s translated work was internally consistent but distinctly different from all other translated authors’ measurements.
18. Not all translators need show these differing patterns. Some translators think their nonliteral “free translation” is preferable. Complete free translations could be expected to yield only the translator’s personal paraphrase of the ideas from the original text. In the extreme, free translations would produce only a single wordprint pattern for all of the translator’s personal writings and translations of different foreign authors’ works.
19. Typically between 40 to 47 of Morton’s 65 word patterns are measured often enough to be accepted as statistically useful. We therefore expected that true within-author comparisons show an average rejections number at slightly over 5% (i.e., .05 x 40=2) as we compared the two texts, at alpha .05 or 95% probability. Our results confirmed our expectations.
7 rejections (t=2.76) gives >99.5% confidence that the two texts are statistically different and therefore written by different authors.
8 rejections (t=3.39) gives >99.9% confidence that the two texts are statistically different and therefore written by different authors.
9 rejections (t=4.02) gives >99.99% confidence that the two texts are statistically different and therefore written by different authors.
10 rejections (t=4.64) gives > 99.997% confidence that the two texts are statistically different and therefore written by different authors.
21. Furthermore, because the data are categorical and in a statistical sense (approximately) independent, the probability is vanishingly small that Nephi and Alma could have had the same author in spite of all four texts measuring with high rejections. The combined probability would approach 1.3 x 10-14. (This calculation is simply the product of each of the four probabilities for same authorship—one minus the probability for different authorship reported above—which would be .005 x .001 x .0001 x .00003 = 1.3 x 10-14.) Approximate independence of the four paired-test texts is assumed, as is customary in wordprinting (see A. Q. Morton, 154—5, n. 7). This approximate simultaneous calculation shows an enormous statistical overkill, demonstrating overwhelming statistical separation between the didactic writings of the purported Book of Mormon authors Nephi and Alma.
22. Care was taken to insure that the texts used to represent the free-flow writing of Oliver Cowdery, Solomon Spaulding, and Joseph Smith were correctly chosen for minimal editorial rework and that they were correctly entered into the computer. In the case of Joseph Smith two of the three 5000-word files were taken from his own autobiographic writings, the third from the earliest version of his dictated work used for Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith—History 1:1—75. Solomon Spaulding was sampled from a certified transcript of his manuscript labeled “Manuscript Story.” Oliver Cowdery is represented from bylined articles taken from numbers of the Kirtland, Ohio, newspaper Messenger and Advocate printed during the time he was the active editor.

tokenized:
John L. Hilton is adjunct professor of statistics at Brigham Young University . This chapter is reprinted by permission , with slight alteration for clarification . First published in BYU Studies 30/3 ( 1990 ): 89—108 .
 In 1980 Wayne A. Larsen , Alvin C. Rencher , and Tim Layton published the first complete analysis of the Book of Mormon using the then adolescent tool of computerized stylometry , or wordprinting.1 They analyzed author - specific word - use rate to show that the purported authors in the Book of Mormon are statistically different — that not one but many authors contributed to the book . Since then the science of wordprinting has continued to undergo considerable critical evaluation , particularly in its application to the Book of Mormon .
 Shortly after BYU Studies published Larsen , Rencher , and Layton ’s pioneering work , I joined forces with a small group of scientists in Berkeley , California , who were attempting to verify the accuracy of wordprinting in general and to check the Larsen - Rencher - Layton results specifically . After seven years of study and development , we concluded that wordprint measurements are now at the stage where scholars can use such tests confidently and without personal bias to analyze contested authorship in many literary works , including the Book of Mormon . This paper explores our conclusion by ( 1 ) discussing some general ideas about wordprints and wordprinting , ( 2 ) reviewing some early wordprint studies in the evolution of wordprint science , ( 3 ) summarizing the development of a new measurement technique , including important control studies to verify the objectivity of that technique , and ( 4 ) setting forth some verified Book of Mormon measurements . Before proceeding , I will establish the need for wordprints for the Book of Mormon and also discuss one important caveat .
 The need for rigorous , legitimate wordprint measurements is obvious in attempting to settle some of the most prominent controversies surrounding the Book of Mormon : Are the word patterns of Joseph Smith , Oliver Cowdery , or Solomon Spaulding measurable in the Book of Mormon ? Can wordprinting show that different sections of the Book of Mormon were written by different authors ? Does Joseph Smith ’s role as translator obfuscate patterns unique to ancient authors ? Fortunately the Book of Mormon is a near - ideal document for such objective wordprint studies , provided the measurement is made correctly .
 Of course , wordprint analysis , while it can measure certain facts objectively , can not prove the holiness of the Book of Mormon . The understanding that the Book of Mormon has a divine origin is obtainable only by developing faith . Thus , while valid and objective wordprinting is no substitute for faith , wordprinting can , nevertheless , bolster the establishment of faith by rigorously demonstrating factual information about the book .
 Wordprinting is a developing science , notwithstanding that the first written suggestions that something like wordprinting might be useful in objectively identifying authors appeared at least as early as 1851 . Yet , because of the complexity of the measurements , the first credible studies had to await the availability of modern computers with their precise counting accuracy and high - speed computation . Therefore , wordprinting has undergone almost all of its significant development during the last thirty years .
 Most modern wordprint techniques measure only the placement of “ noncontextual ” words . Noncontextual words like the , and , a , of , etc . are often capable of being interchanged or even dropped without a loss of overall meaning ; they seem to add little in context information , often being consciously ignored by writer and reader alike . Obviously , measuring noncontextual words makes word - printing less sensitive to the subject matter . In addition , the technique improves statistical accuracy . Noncontextual words typically make up 20 % to 45 % of the total text , thereby providing a high number of statistical “ events , ” and the larger the statistical measurement is , the more reliable the results are . Wordprint measurements made from large numbers of noncontextual words continue to show that an author ’s free - flow writings use these words in a habitual , nearly subconscious , unique way.4 However , if the author consciously imposes an external structure , the free flow of the author ’s wordprint pattern is modified , and accurate wordprint measurements become more difficult to obtain .
 Wordprinting measures the difference in the way noncontextual word patterns occur in two compared texts . Usually one of the texts is of disputed authorship while the other is by an author suspected of writing the disputed text . If the same word pattern is found to be statistically different between the two texts , we identify the difference as a rejection.5 The total of the rejections measured when the two texts are tested for a large number of word patterns is identified as the number of rejections . The larger the number of rejections , the more likely the disputed text was not written by the author of the other compared text . Thus , testing a contested document against comparable texts from all possible candidate - authors will identify the most likely writer by eliminating authors whose texts generate high numbers of rejections .
 Finding the most likely writer depends on the word - printing technique ’s accuracy . The accuracy ( and usefulness ) of a wordprint measuring technique critically depends on the statistical reliability in detecting which of its tested text pairs are not written by the same author . Statistical reliability is rigorously demonstrated by using the technique with a large number of control - author texts for the purpose of verifying the authorship of known texts . These texts correspond in size and include examples of the different literary parameters ( genre , subject matter , writing period , position in an author ’s career ) that are to be studied later . The verifying measurements made between two control texts written by the same author are identified as within - author tests . The tests between texts written by different authors are called between - author tests . The statistical separation measured between the overall distributions of a large number of the within - author and between - author tests is the valid measurement of what will be expected when a contested author is later tested with the same technique . In other words , the difference between the number of rejections found between texts by the same author and texts by different authors will serve as a standard . This standard is used to evaluate the numbers of rejections found when testing texts of contested authorship .
 Measuring the differences in word patterns between texts is the basic process of a wordprinting technique . Verifying such a technique , while straightforward in principle , is in practice very tedious . Thus , during the years of wordprinting development , many proposed wordprint measuring systems were verified only superficially on a narrow set of texts . Unfortunately , researchers often assumed that a wordprint measuring technique shown valid for one set of literary parameters would also be valid for all others . We now realize such assumptions are not valid ; we must successfully verify each wordprint measuring methodology with control texts which represent all the literary parameters that are to be reliably measured later on .
 Perhaps one of the earliest successful wordprint studies in the United States was the classical work by the statisticians Frederick Mosteller and David L. Wallace , who published their work on author identification in 1964.6 While not the first scholars to attempt computer - assisted stylo - metry , they published one of the first complete and internally consistent studies on a set of historically important documents . Their work convincingly identified the author of several anonymously published Federalist Papers . Mosteller and Wallace measured the rates at which simple , noncontextual words were used per 1000 words of text . This statistical model appeared adequately sensitive and valid to unambiguously show that James Madison was the author of the disputed documents . They showed that the other two possible candidate - authors were overwhelmingly excluded as authors of any of the twelve disputed documents .
 The wordprint study on the Federalist Papers had several advantages which facilitated statistical measurements . First , the documents are lengthy , were written in the same genre on the same subject , and have essentially the same vocabulary . Additionally , for control texts Mosteller and Wallace were able to use uncontested writings by the suspected authors , writings which are of the same length , genre , subject , and vocabulary as the suspect texts . That the simple Mosteller and Wallace wordprint technique had been shown to be valid only for their single , nearly ideal class of texts was at first not appreciated as important .
 Not all succeeding studies had documents that presented as favorable a situation as did that of Mosteller and Wallace . In addition , most later wordprinters did not execute their studies in such a thorough way . Many omitted any independent control studies to confirm that their wordprint techniques were valid for their given case . As a consequence , some published studies purportedly giving objective answers later proved to be inaccurate .
 The first extensive wordprint measurements of the Book of Mormon appeared in 1978 when Alvin C. Rencher and Wayne A. Larsen began reporting their pioneering study in author identification . This work was followed by their complete report in 1980.9 They also coined the term wordprint , and introduced to Church and world scholars the interesting possibility of objective author identification in the Book of Mormon . They used information gained from earlier approaches and applied the simple noncontextual word - use rate of Mosteller and Wallace ’s technique but coupled it with a powerful , multivariate statistical analysis .
 Unlike previous studies which introduced the concept of hand - tabulated word measurements to the Book of Mormon,10 the 1980 wordprint study published by Larsen , Rencher , and Layton was widely recognized as important both within and without the Church.11 If the measurement technique was in fact objective and verifiable , any competent student could duplicate the calculations to determine answers to a number of questions that have remained controversial among Book of Mormon believers and detractors .
 Along with others who found the reported work of the BYU team of Larsen - Rencher - Layton interesting and challenging was a small group of scientific researchers in northern California to which I belonged . Our group , later known as the Berkeley Group , included major contributors from different scientific disciplines and differing religious persuasions . All of us shared the scientific curiosity which led us to test the intriguing Larsen - Rencher - Layton claim . In the fall of 1980 , we began our study . As the major LDS contributor in the group , I was little different from my agnostic and Jewish colleagues : each of us seriously questioned whether objective measurement could determine who did or did not write a controversial document like the Book of Mormon . Therefore , armed with a healthy skepticism , we began a confirmational study — the kind of study scientists typically perform in the physical sciences — to recalculate the wordprint measurements while correcting any procedural or calculational flaws which could potentially have confused the results of the original study .
 During the time our Berkeley Group was doing its work , other Book of Mormon scholars were also studying the approach proposed by the Larsen - Rencher - Layton team . One of the most notable of these is the University of Utah statistician , D. James Croft . His work is that of a competent scholar as well as a conscientious believer in the divinity of the Book of Mormon . His published work is a carefully reasoned critique of the Larsen - Rencher - Layton paper.14 As would be expected from a scholar of the exact sciences , he cautioned his LDS readers about the unverified nature of the methodology : “ Close scrutiny of the methodology of the BYU authorship study reveals several areas which seem vulnerable to criticism . ” After calling for a redevelopment of methodology which could circumvent the specific areas he found questionable , he concludes , “ Certainly any research done in the future will be indebted to Larsen , Rencher and Layton , who called our attention to an interesting and challenging area of Book of Mormon study . At the present time , however . . . it would be best to reserve judgment concerning whether or not it is possible to prove the existence of multiple authors of the Book of Mormon ” ( 21 ) .
 We kept in close contact with Dr. Croft and others15 who were contributing to the continuing refinement of wordprinting during the years when our independent methodology was under development . We appreciated the continuing contributions of these scholars as they helped us insure that the suspect areas recognized in the earlier methodologies would be avoided and that the verification of our new wordprint measuring technique would be complete enough to insure reliable answers .
 Our new conservative measurements incorporate six points which were not used in earlier Book of Mormon wordprint studies . These points contribute to improved reliability when 5000 - word texts are tested . They are ( 1 ) measuring the author ’s wordprint by studying the use rate of sixty - five noncontextual word - pattern ratios as proposed by Morton ( 1985 ) ; ( 2 ) abandoning the commonly accepted statistical assumption of “ normality ” of word distribution and instead using the Mann - Whitney nonparametric statistic , which does not require the unverifiable normality simplification ; ( 3 ) developing a “ wrap - around ” word - group counting method which helps break apart clusters of similar words in the sampled text words ( this method helps provide the statistically required word - group homogeneity ) ; ( 4 ) making comparison measurements between just two texts at a time ; ( 5 ) using the oldest extant Book of Mormon manuscripts ( the texts used do not include the repetitive use of the phrase and it came to pass , nor do they include significant direct quotations from the King James Bible — including such text would distort the noncontextual word counts for each author ) ; and ( 6 ) verifying the sensitivity of the computer coding and measurement methodology by measuring a diverse set of texts of nondisputed authorship which represent the appropriate literary parameters .
 Deriving the model becomes relatively unimportant compared to designing the control studies which verify or disprove the validity of the method . For our control studies , we specifically chose a representative set of literary texts which would test the extremes found in English - language writings . When we tested these control texts , we found that our technique yielded well - defined , bell - shaped distributions , showing that our new wordprint technique is essentially insensitive to the textual changes introduced by the differing literary parameters of genre , subject matter , writing period , position in an author ’s career , or normal publication editing .
 Specifically , this extended verification study tested the validity of our model by calculating 325 diverse wordprint tests . These tests studied 26 noncontroversial 5000 - word texts which had been written under various conditions by nine different control authors ( see Appendix 3 ) . The within - author and between - author results rigorously supported the basic wordprint assumption : although all authors have many writing habits in common , they each show measurably unique , stable rates for some noncontextual word patterns . Among the nondisputed documents that were used in the testing were texts by Oliver Cowdery and samples of Joseph Smith ’s autographic and dictated writings .
 The results of our verification tests are displayed in figure 1 . Thirty - three of these tests are made by comparing texts written by the same author ; 292 of the tests compared one author ’s writing against that of another author . The black bars represent the 33 within - author measurements , which yield a statistically smooth distribution peaking at about 2 rejections , a result that is theoretically expected.19 The distribution peak for between - author comparisons is about 7 rejections . Therefore , about two - thirds of the true between - author measurements fall above even the extremes of the within - author distribution . This result means that when any 5000 - word disputed text is tested against a known author ’s comparable works and measures 7 or more rejections , the two texts are very likely not written by the same author.20 The lower the number of rejections , the greater the likelihood that the two texts were written by the same author ; the higher the number of rejections , the more likely that different authors composed the two compared texts .
 If we have only two 5000 - word texts and their paired testing measures 1 to 6 rejections ( as is expected for a true between - author pair in about one - third of the cases ) , we can not assign authorship unambiguously because the within - author and between - author distributions overlap each other in this range . Similarly , for the few tests ( about ten percent of the true within - author cases ) that measure zero rejections , there is a high probability that the compared texts were written by the same author .
 We wished to make the most conservative measurement possible ; therefore we compared the two Book of Mormon authors who have the largest number of 5000 - word texts . Further , even though our verification testing showed that our new wordprint measuring technique is not unduly sensitive to normal changes of genre , we still chose the more conservative comparison by testing only within the same literary form . Therefore , we selected for our critical Book of Mormon verification measurements three independent , 5000 - word texts from the didactic writings of each of the two major purported Book of Mormon authors , Nephi and Alma . Those texts are the largest same - genre pair in the book . Besides eliminating any possible lingering concern that changing genre might artificially cause additional rejections , the use of the didactic genre has the advantage of essentially excluding the possibly troublesome phrase and it came to pass . This phrase is the only phrase used repetitively enough in the Book of Mormon to be troubling to wordprint measurements .
 Our results are displayed starting with figure 2 , which shows the distribution of the number of wordprint rejections for the six possible within - author tests of Nephi against Nephi and Alma against Alma . The within - author tests for both show the same distribution as the within - author tests of our control studies , shown in grey in figure 2 .
 Figure 3 is a plot of the rejection distribution calculated from the between - author tests of direct interest to the Book of Mormon authorship question . The black bars show the comparisons of the texts purportedly written by Nephi when tested against those purportedly written by Alma . The tests show the same relatively large number of rejections found in the between - author distribution in figure 1 ( shown in figure 3 in grey ) , which was derived from the comparisons made between the texts of the different control authors .
 Table 1 shows the measurements for the individual wordprint tests used in producing figures 2 and 3 . Taking the comparisons of Nephi versus Alma , we found that in eight of the nine tests , 5 or more rejections resulted . Four of these tests produced 7 , 8 , 9 , and 10 rejections . These four high - rejection tests ( which yielded 7 , 8 , 9 , and 10 rejections ) independently measure a statistical confidence of greater than 99.5 % , 99.9 % , 99.99 % , and 99.997 % probability that the measured rejections show that the author ’s patterns are very different consistent with Nephi ’s texts having been written by a different author than wrote Alma.21 Therefore the Book of Mormon measures patterns of different authors according to its own internal claims .
 By using a new wordprint measuring methodology which has been verified , we show that it is statistically indefensible to propose Joseph Smith or Oliver Cowdery or Solomon Spaulding as the author of the 30,000 words from the Book of Mormon manuscript texts attributed to Nephi and Alma . Additionally these two Book of Mormon writers have wordprints unique to themselves and measure statistically independent from each other in the same fashion that other uncontested authors do . Therefore , the Book of Mormon measures multiauthored , with authorship consistent to its own internal claims . These results are obtained even though the writings of Nephi and Alma were “ translated ” by Joseph Smith . We also described control studies of modern language academic translations where , in practice , a single translator can consistently preserve the unique wordprints of the several original authors he has translated .
 Useful noncontextual word patterns meet the following conditions : they yield an unambiguous count , they occur frequently , they have common alternate expressions , their use rates tend to become habitual , and they are minimally affected by the period of the writer ’s career , the subject matter , and the genre . Therefore , useful word patterns are typically made up of key words such as common articles , conjunctions , and prepositions . Measurements are calculated from the ratio of the overall key - word - use rate against the same key - word - use rate in certain sentence positions , word collocations , proportional pairs , or the use of key words adjacent to certain parts of speech and novel vocabulary words .
 # represents the number of end of sentence markers fws represents the first word in a sentence lws represents the last word in a sentence 2nd lws represents the second to last word in a sentence fb means “ followed by ” pb means “ preceded by ” x represents any word r+l means that the word to the right and left are unique within the original 1000 - word block .
 The photonegative of the 1966 filming of the Book of Mormon printer ’s manuscript was courteously supplied , without endorsement , by the History Commission of the RLDS Church . By October of 1982 , a board of seven editors prepared a primitive Book of Mormon text using the following sources : ( 1 ) a computer file of the 1830 Palmyra first printed edition of the Book of Mormon developed in the BYU Language Research Center by L. K. Browning , ( 2 ) the photo - offset copy of the first edition printed by Wilford C. Wood , ( 3 ) a copy of the text of extant sections of the original dictation manuscript collected by L. K. Browning , and ( 4 ) the complete printer ’s manuscript . The editors prepared a composite file of the oldest sections from each manuscript to complete a Book of Mormon text computer file which we named “ The Most Primitive Book of Mormon Manuscript Text . ” The editors also prepared and verified line headers which identified the apparent original author , the literary form , modern book , chapter , verse , and line notation for each line of text . Similar line headings are now published in Book of Mormon Critical Text : A Tool for Scholarly Reference , Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies ( hereafter cited as FARMS ) STF-84aa , 3 vols . ( Provo , Utah : FARMS , 1984—87 ) .
 Does the Race of Man Love a Lord ? an essay on American and European mores ( 1902 ) in The Complete Humorous Sketches and Tales of Mark Twain , ed . Charles Nelder ( New York : Doubleday & Company , 1961 ) , 686—96 .
 “ Early Days , ” a narrative ( 1875 ) in Mark Twain ’s Autobiography ( New York : Harper & Brothers Publishers , 1875 ) , 81—123 .
 “ Extracts from Adam ’s Diary , ” fanciful fiction , a spoofing translation , likely a satire on the Book of Mormon ( 1893 ) from “ The Diary of Adam and Eve ” in The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain , ed . Charles Nelder ( New York : Doubleday and Company , 1985 ) , 272—80 , 288—94 .
 “ Eve ’s Diary ( Translated from the Original ) , ” companion to “ Extracts from Adam ’s Diary ” ( C. above ) , author attempting to write for two different people ( 1905 ) , 281—8 .
 Written religious discourse and biographical essays from Messenger and Advocate ( 1830 ) .
 A second selection from the same article series as used in ( A ) ( 1830 ) .
 Life of William Shakespeare , an essay , only 3528 words ( about 1770 ) . Photocopy in possession of the author , original found in Yale Library .
 The Number of the Beast , fanciful science - fiction narrative ; first - person narrative chapters simulating the writing of his character Hilda ( New York : Ballantine , 1980 ) .
 A second selection from The Number of the Beast , chapters simulating the first - person narrative of his character Deety ( A. above ) .
 The Rambler , first part of the newspaper essays ( 1750 ) .
 A second selection from The Rambler ( 1751 ) .
 The Idler , newspaper essays ( 1758 ) .
 A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland , a personal travelogue ( 1775 ) .
 A second selection from ( D ) above ( 1775 ) .
 The Fountains : A Fairy Tale , fanciful narrative ( 1766 ) , only 4879 words ( London : Elkin Mathews and Manot , 1927 ) , 9—48 .
 Autographic letters to wife Emma , friends , and the Church ( 1834—38 ) in The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith , comp . and ed . Dean C. Jessee ( Salt Lake City : Deseret Book , 1984 ) .
 A second selection from ( A ) above ( 1836 ) .
 Pearl of Great Price , Joseph Smith — History 1:1—75 , dictated and carefully polished with the assistance of his clerks ( 1834—38 ) .
 “ The Novella , ” an essay , written in English , in Twelve German Novellas , ed . and trans . Harry Steinhauer ( Berkeley : University of California Press , 1977 ) , Introduction , ix — xxiii .
 A second selection from ( A ) above plus 1000 words from ( C ) below ( 1977 and 1974 ) .
 Heine and Cecile Furtado : A Reconsideration , biographical essay , written in English , Modern Language Notes 89 ( April 1974 ): 422—47 .
 Michael Kohlhaas , novella , written in German ( about 1850 ) , trans . Harry Steinhauer ( 1977 — see VII . A. above ) .
 A second selection from ( A ) above ( about 1850 ) .
 A third selection from ( A ) above ( about 1850 ) .
 Love and Friendship Tested , novella , written in German ( about 1770 ) , trans . Harry Steinhauer ( 1977 — see VII . A. above ) .
 A second selection from ( A ) above ( about 1770 ) .
 1 . For Larsen , Rencher , and Layton ’s Book of Mormon wordprint study , see “ Who Wrote the Book of Mormon ? An Analysis of Wordprints , ” BYU Studies 20 ( spring 1980 ): 225—51 .
 2 . For a detailed discussion of wordprinting single - authored texts with a few thousand words , see John L. Hilton and Kenneth D. Jenkins , “ On Maximizing Author Identification by Measuring 5000 Word Texts ” ( Provo , Utah : FARMS , 1987 ) .
 3 . Works known to be written prior to computer - aided authorship are essentially immune . In principle one can argue that a modern , computer - assisted forger could manufacture a document capable of deceiving an authorship measurement . To attempt such a forgery would be an enormous task and would still leave the forger unsure beforehand as to which of all of the possible word patterns the wordprinter would ultimately use to test the manufactured document . Of course , such a fraudulent document would be susceptible to detection by the standard procedures now used to identify any pastiche .
 4 . To be a valid measurement , the words must be essentially the free - flow choice of the purported author . Extensive quoting of someone else ’s words is different from free paraphrasing and , of course , tends to produce a wordprint closer to the pattern of the one being quoted . Further , deliberately writing to an externally imposed pattern which restricts the normal noncontextual word choices of the writer or repetitively using normally noncontextual words in textually important ways can also change the wordprint patterns . For an example of deliberate change in a wordprint , see Tim Hiatt and John Hilton , “ Can Authors Alter their Wordprints ? Faulkner ’s Narrators in As I Lay Dying , ” Selected Papers from the Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Symposium , ed . Melvin Luthy ( Provo , Utah : Deseret Language and Linguistic Society , 1990 ) . Examples of these wordprint problems found in the Book of Mormon are the extensive quotations from the King James Bible and the repetitive use of the phrase and it came to pass . Proper wordprint testing must take these special problems into account .
 5 . A rejection results from the statistical calculation of a null - hypothesis rejection ( p<.05 ) for any one of the tested word patterns as the two texts are compared . A rejection is considered statistically useful only for word patterns that can be found five or more times in either of the compared 5000 - word texts .
 6 . For the 1964 study , see F. W. Mosteller and D. Wallace , Inference and Disputed Authorship : The Federalist Papers ( Reading , Mass. : Addison - Wesley , 1964 ) ; second edition published as Frederick Mosteller and David L , Wallace , Applied Bayesian and Classical Inference : The Case of the Federalist Papers ( New York : Springer - Verlag , 1984 ) .
 7 . Morton ’s arguments for using word - pattern ratios instead of simple word - use rates are found in A. Q. Morton , Literary Detection : How to Prove Authorship and Fraud in Literature and Documents ( New York : Charles Scribner ’s Sons , 1978 ) .
 8 . Kendra L. Lindsay , “ An Authorship Study of the Pauline Epistles ” ( master ’s thesis , Brigham Young University , 1986 ) .
 10 . Perhaps the most significant of the precomputer studies was Glade L. Burgon ’s “ An Analysis of Style Variations in the Book of Mormon ” ( Master ’s thesis , Brigham Young University , 1950 ) .
 11 . Some publications that support Larsen , Rencher , and Layton ’s work , besides those referenced in nn . 8 and 14 , include New Era 9 ( November 1979 ): 10—3 , and Noel B. Reynolds ’s Book of Mormon Authorship : New Light on Ancient Origins , Religious Studies Monograph Series , vol . 7 ( Provo , Utah : BYU Religious Studies Center , 1982 ) .
 Perhaps the latest neutral reference to their work , representing those in the scholarly community , would be Joseph Rudman at the Dynamic Text Conference , Toronto , Canada , 7 June 1989 . In his presentation on authorship attribution in the literary computing session , Rudman noted their work as significant .
 Among the anti - Book of Mormon references , likely the most extensive work provoked by the Larsen - Rencher - Layton study was an attempt at a wordprint measurement by Ernest H. Taves as reported in his book Trouble Enough : Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon ( Buffalo , N.Y. : Prometheus Books , 1984 ) , 225—60 . Unfortunately , the Taves study was fundamentally flawed as described in the critique of his work ( John L. Hilton , “ Review of Ernest Tares ’ Book of Mormon Stylometry , ” [ Provo , Utah : FARMS , 1986 ] ) , and therefore did nothing to add to or detract from their work .
 14 . D. James Croft , “ Book of Mormon ‘ Wordprints ’ Reexamined ” Sunstone 6 ( March — April 1981 ): 15—21 .
 15 . Significant assistance was received from Yehuda Radday of the Department of General Studies , Technion University , Haifa , Israel ; Kenneth R. Beesley , graduate student working with Sidney Michaelson and A. Q. Morton , University of Edinburgh , School of Epistemics , Edinburgh , Scotland ; and A. Q. Morton , The Abbey Mannse , Culross , Fife , Scotland . Personal communications .
 17 . Subsequent to our study of the works of two German authors , we extended our work to include three more semiclassical German novella authors , all of whom had been translated by the same German - to - English translator , Harry Steinbauer . All of our new measurements gave the same results as before : each German author ’s translated work was internally consistent but distinctly different from all other translated authors ’ measurements .
 18 . Not all translators need show these differing patterns . Some translators think their nonliteral “ free translation ” is preferable . Complete free translations could be expected to yield only the translator ’s personal paraphrase of the ideas from the original text . In the extreme , free translations would produce only a single wordprint pattern for all of the translator ’s personal writings and translations of different foreign authors ’ works .
 19 . Typically between 40 to 47 of Morton ’s 65 word patterns are measured often enough to be accepted as statistically useful . We therefore expected that true within - author comparisons show an average rejections number at slightly over 5 % ( i.e. , .05 x 40=2 ) as we compared the two texts , at alpha .05 or 95 % probability . Our results confirmed our expectations .
 7 rejections ( t=2.76 ) gives > 99.5 % confidence that the two texts are statistically different and therefore written by different authors .
 8 rejections ( t=3.39 ) gives > 99.9 % confidence that the two texts are statistically different and therefore written by different authors .
 9 rejections ( t=4.02 ) gives > 99.99 % confidence that the two texts are statistically different and therefore written by different authors .
 10 rejections ( t=4.64 ) gives > 99.997 % confidence that the two texts are statistically different and therefore written by different authors .
 21 . Furthermore , because the data are categorical and in a statistical sense ( approximately ) independent , the probability is vanishingly small that Nephi and Alma could have had the same author in spite of all four texts measuring with high rejections . The combined probability would approach 1.3 x 10 - 14 . ( This calculation is simply the product of each of the four probabilities for same authorship — one minus the probability for different authorship reported above — which would be .005 x .001 x .0001 x .00003 = 1.3 x 10 - 14 . ) Approximate independence of the four paired - test texts is assumed , as is customary in wordprinting ( see A. Q. Morton , 154—5 , n. 7 ) . This approximate simultaneous calculation shows an enormous statistical overkill , demonstrating overwhelming statistical separation between the didactic writings of the purported Book of Mormon authors Nephi and Alma .
 22 . Care was taken to insure that the texts used to represent the free - flow writing of Oliver Cowdery , Solomon Spaulding , and Joseph Smith were correctly chosen for minimal editorial rework and that they were correctly entered into the computer . In the case of Joseph Smith two of the three 5000 - word files were taken from his own autobiographic writings , the third from the earliest version of his dictated work used for Pearl of Great Price , Joseph Smith — History 1:1—75 . Solomon Spaulding was sampled from a certified transcript of his manuscript labeled “ Manuscript Story . ” Oliver Cowdery is represented from bylined articles taken from numbers of the Kirtland , Ohio , newspaper Messenger and Advocate printed during the time he was the active editor .


text:
Does anyone know if celestial fortune works with individual crit chances? meaning if i get the weapon talent that increases my blackout strike crit chance by 3% and i have 20% crit does it now increase to 23% chance to get an orb?
This bonus also works with shields! It doesn't say it on the passive, and no, you don't get a direct heal from shields used on you, but all shields you receive are increased by 100% of your critical strike chance.
You have a chance equal to your critical strike chance to be healed for an additional 65% of the amount healed.

tokenized:
Does anyone know if celestial fortune works with individual crit chances ? meaning if i get the weapon talent that increases my blackout strike crit chance by 3 % and i have 20 % crit does it now increase to 23 % chance to get an orb ?
 This bonus also works with shields ! It does n't say it on the passive , and no , you do n't get a direct heal from shields used on you , but all shields you receive are increased by 100 % of your critical strike chance .
 You have a chance equal to your critical strike chance to be healed for an additional 65 % of the amount healed .


text:
09-Aug-2001 -- Having just come from our last two successful visits at N50° W107° and N52° W108° we headed off to our third one of the day. From Biggar we headed west along Highway 51 towards Kerrobert. We turned north onto Highway 659 and after about 6.5 km came to a grid road that would lead us to the confluence point. It was quite apparent that this one would once again be another typical Saskatchewan confluence point ... flat prairie and a farmer's field.
One and a half kilometers west then about 310 m north on a second grid road brought us to within 178 m west of the confluence. We parked the van on the side of the road and headed out on foot. We both remarked what a difference this field of wheat was in comparison to the one we had been in at N51° W102°. There the wheat was at least waist high while here it barely came up to our knees. The ground was extremely dry and in several places we noticed deep cracks in the soil. This is not going to go down as a record crop year for farmers in the west side of the province. Once again the drought was taking its toll.
Although the mosquitoes were not quite as bad as we had experienced at our previous visit to N52° W108° we did find that the field was alive with grasshoppers. If the drought wasn't bad enough for the farmers to contend with they also had the grasshoppers to deal with. They were managing to destroy what little crop there was.
After taking the required photos we looked around the area to find something a little more interesting to photograph. We did find a pretty little valley just 800 m north and took a few pictures there. Too bad the confluence point wasn't situated there! It was now 6:00 and time to call it a day. We headed west, passing through Kerrobert where a couple of other photo opportunities presented themselves. Our plans called for an overnight stop in Lloydminster ... the only city in Canada that exists in two provinces. We had at least another 200 km to drive before we could call it a day. Supper was definitely going to be late tonight!
#1: Looking north from the confluence point towards a small valley in the distance.
#4: The van on the road west of the confluence.
#5: The GPS showing "the spot".
#7: Looking down the road to the valley mentioned in picture #1.
#9: The Graduates of 2001 "graffiti barn" just outside of Kerrobert.

tokenized:
09 - Aug-2001 -- Having just come from our last two successful visits at N50 ° W107 ° and N52 ° W108 ° we headed off to our third one of the day . From Biggar we headed west along Highway 51 towards Kerrobert . We turned north onto Highway 659 and after about 6.5 km came to a grid road that would lead us to the confluence point . It was quite apparent that this one would once again be another typical Saskatchewan confluence point ... flat prairie and a farmer 's field .
 One and a half kilometers west then about 310 m north on a second grid road brought us to within 178 m west of the confluence . We parked the van on the side of the road and headed out on foot . We both remarked what a difference this field of wheat was in comparison to the one we had been in at N51 ° W102 ° . There the wheat was at least waist high while here it barely came up to our knees . The ground was extremely dry and in several places we noticed deep cracks in the soil . This is not going to go down as a record crop year for farmers in the west side of the province . Once again the drought was taking its toll .
 Although the mosquitoes were not quite as bad as we had experienced at our previous visit to N52 ° W108 ° we did find that the field was alive with grasshoppers . If the drought was n't bad enough for the farmers to contend with they also had the grasshoppers to deal with . They were managing to destroy what little crop there was .
 After taking the required photos we looked around the area to find something a little more interesting to photograph . We did find a pretty little valley just 800 m north and took a few pictures there . Too bad the confluence point was n't situated there ! It was now 6:00 and time to call it a day . We headed west , passing through Kerrobert where a couple of other photo opportunities presented themselves . Our plans called for an overnight stop in Lloydminster ... the only city in Canada that exists in two provinces . We had at least another 200 km to drive before we could call it a day . Supper was definitely going to be late tonight !
 # 1 : Looking north from the confluence point towards a small valley in the distance .
 # 4 : The van on the road west of the confluence .
 # 5 : The GPS showing " the spot " .
 # 7 : Looking down the road to the valley mentioned in picture # 1 .
 # 9 : The Graduates of 2001 " graffiti barn " just outside of Kerrobert .


text:
Fantastic news; we have a publication and launch date.
It’s been a bit of a journey, involving lots of interviews with Alf along with all the usual stuff that goes into writing a book.
On Wednesday 26 September there will be a launch party at Look Mum No Hands! in London. It’ll take the format of a loose question and answer with Alf Engers, a bit of a spiel from me and a chance to buy copies of the book and get them signed.
In the interim, there is the chance to meet Alf at the National “25” Championships in Liphook, on Sunday 5 August. Alf will be guest of honour and presenting the prizes. There will be a commemorative set of 4 postcards and some stickers available to buy on the day (at very low prices, simply to cover production costs), and the opportunity to get these signed, not only by Alf but also by Marcin, Dan Bigham and others. The race HQ is Bohunt School. You’ll also be able to pre-order the book and if lucky, pre-order one of the ultra-rare drillium editions. (note: the pages are not drilled, it comes in a beautiful, hand milled hardcase).
On Saturday 18 August at 3pm I’ll be giving a preview of the book, reading some sections and playing unreleased audio from interviews, along with unseen images. This is happening as part of the Bristol Ride Culture festival, organised by Forever Pedalling and in conjuntion with Spoke and Stringer. I’ll also have copies of the hill climb book and postcards/stickers for sale and will take pre-orders for the drillium (subject to availability) and standard editions.
Will the book be available for general sale after the launch, and if so where?
Excellent! I shall await the hour and order from yourself. Many thanks and I hope you have a great launch party.
Well done. I look forward to it. Enjoyed ACE very much indeed. More good books on UK cycling needed.

tokenized:
Fantastic news ; we have a publication and launch date .
 It ’s been a bit of a journey , involving lots of interviews with Alf along with all the usual stuff that goes into writing a book .
 On Wednesday 26 September there will be a launch party at Look Mum No Hands ! in London . It ’ll take the format of a loose question and answer with Alf Engers , a bit of a spiel from me and a chance to buy copies of the book and get them signed .
 In the interim , there is the chance to meet Alf at the National “ 25 ” Championships in Liphook , on Sunday 5 August . Alf will be guest of honour and presenting the prizes . There will be a commemorative set of 4 postcards and some stickers available to buy on the day ( at very low prices , simply to cover production costs ) , and the opportunity to get these signed , not only by Alf but also by Marcin , Dan Bigham and others . The race HQ is Bohunt School . You ’ll also be able to pre - order the book and if lucky , pre - order one of the ultra - rare drillium editions . ( note : the pages are not drilled , it comes in a beautiful , hand milled hardcase ) .
 On Saturday 18 August at 3 pm I ’ll be giving a preview of the book , reading some sections and playing unreleased audio from interviews , along with unseen images . This is happening as part of the Bristol Ride Culture festival , organised by Forever Pedalling and in conjuntion with Spoke and Stringer . I ’ll also have copies of the hill climb book and postcards / stickers for sale and will take pre - orders for the drillium ( subject to availability ) and standard editions .
 Will the book be available for general sale after the launch , and if so where ?
 Excellent ! I shall await the hour and order from yourself . Many thanks and I hope you have a great launch party .
 Well done . I look forward to it . Enjoyed ACE very much indeed . More good books on UK cycling needed .