Comparing Goodreads data to university syllabuses: Study of women writers

University of Calgary Associate Professor Karen Bourrier shares the findings of a recent project that examined the presence of women writers on syllabi and their popularity among online platform Goodreads readers. University professors include women writers on their syllabi less often than male writers, explains Bourrier, while Goodreads readers are more willing to read books written by either men or women. The author describes how she used Open Syllabus Project data and scraped data from Goodreads to understand reading practices. The study found that Goodreads users read books assigned on syllabi around as often as they were taught by university professors, but that these users also read writing by women with strong female protagonists more often than it was assigned in university classes. Bourrier argues that this research shows that professors should assign writing by women more often. The Conversation (Editorial)