The book only gets 3 stars, but is considered great literature
A new study from the Center for Humanities Computing and the Center for Contemporary Cultures of Text at Aarhus University shows that star ratings of books are not always accurate.
You may have tried it yourself: to deselect a book because it "only" has about three stars on Goodreads. But according to a new study from the Center for Humanities Computing (CHC) and the Center for Contemporary Cultures of Text (TEXT), these books may well contain great literary value.
Goodreads is an international platform where millions of readers rate books between one and five stars. The average is often used as a quick indicator of quality – also by publishers, authors and researchers. But when a book ends up in the middle of the scale, the number says far less than you might think.
The researchers from CHC and TEXT have analyzed about 9,000 American novels published between 1880 and 2000. They have particularly focused on just over 2,000 books with average Goodreads ratings in the middle field. By comparing the readers' stars with other measures of literary quality, the researchers have investigated what is hidden behind the seemingly mediocre figures.
The results show that about 30 percent of these 2,000 "mediocre" books are rated as literary important or of high quality according to other criteria – for example, whether they are considered classics, are part of education or have had great cultural significance.
According to the researchers, the mediocre ratings are often not due to the fact that the books are boring. On the contrary.
A key finding of the study
A key finding of the study is that disagreement among readers does not arise by chance:
"For books that are considered to be of literary significance, we see that the more readers who rate them, the greater the disagreement between readers. Some give top marks, others are critical – and it is precisely this spread that characterises books that engage," says PhD student Pascale Feldkamp, who is behind the study together with colleagues from the Center for Humanities Computing and TEXT.
For books that are generally assessed as less important, the same correlation is not seen. Here, several assessments do not lead to major disagreement. This indicates that split ratings are not just an expression of random noise, but are linked to books that actually mean something to readers.
When disagreement grows as more people read along, it is not a sign of indifference – but of importance." The study thus challenges the notion that a book's value can be read directly in its average star rating. An average rating can cover very different situations. Sometimes it is an expression of a broad but lukewarm agreement. Other times, it hides strong and opposing reading experiences that cancel each other out on average," says Pascale Feldkamp.
An average may look neutral, but can in reality be the sum of strong opinions that point in different directions.
The study's main conclusion is therefore that an average Goodreads rating does not automatically mean that a book is unimportant. On the contrary, it can point to works that are controversial, polarizing – or later recognized as literarily important.
According to the researchers, if reader data from platforms like Goodreads is to be used to say something meaningful about literary success or value, it requires a more nuanced approach. It is not enough to look at one number. You also have to look at how many people are assessing and how much they disagree.
Behind the research results
Study type: Computational study
Authors: Pascale Feldkamp Moreira, Yuri Bizzoni, Mia Jacobsen, Mads Rosendahl Thomsen and Kristoffer L. Nielbo
Link to the scientific publication "The Goodreads' ›Mediocre‹: Assessing a Grey Area of Literary Judgements" in Zeitschrift für digitale Geisteswissenschaften
External funding: Velux Fonden
fact box
Highly rated books with a polarizing character
Highly rated, acclaimed books can get a medium rating because they evoke strong, opposing reactions in readers – either because of style, theme or point of view. Some examples:
- James Joyce: Ulysses (stylistically experimental)
- Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita(provocative theme)
- William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury (fragmented narrator's voice)
- Malcolm Lowry: Under the Volcano(complex style)
- Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead(politically controversial)
- Tim LaHaye & Jerry B. Jenkins: Left Behind (Ideologically Polarizing)
The average rating can thus hide both fascination and frustration.
Article Title
The Goodreads’ ›Mediocre‹: Assessing a Grey Area of Literary Judgements
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