All metrics

'Own works' are works whose writer tag is the collection's author (609,494); 'works by others' are prefaces, postscripts, biographies and elegies printed in the same collection. Centuries follow the author's birth year. Every metric page gives a definition, a formula, caveats and a reliability card.

Size

Collections, works and characters. Characters are counted separately for the main text and for notes (original notes, collation and marginal notes).

Works per collection637,203works · 1,249 collectionsNumber of works in a collection — the ITKC's final unit (one poem, one letter, one epitaph), split into the author's own works and works by others (prefaces, postscripts, biographies, appendices).Characters per collection182.9Mcharacters incl. 5.5M in notesChinese characters in the text of the works, counted separately for the main text and for notes (original notes, collation and marginal notes).Collections by century382collections by authors born in the 16th century — the mostCollections and authors by the author's birth century, first series and supplement apart.Characters per work75median of the 9 century medians, characters per workMedian and mean characters (text + notes) of a work, by century.Share of characters in notes3.0%of all characters are in notesShare of all characters that lie inside notes (original notes, collation and marginal notes).Share of own works95.7%of all works are by the collection's authorShare of a collection's works written by the author; the rest are prefaces, postscripts, biographies, elegies and appendices by others.Fascicles and works per fascicle691/851collections whose fascicle count matches the introductionFascicles counted from '卷n' headings in the table of contents, and works divided by fascicles.

Genre composition

Counts the genre classification the ITKC attached to every work (7 major, 28 minor classes). Headline shares use the author's own works only — works whose writer tag is the collection's author, as opposed to prefaces, postscripts, biographies and elegies by others that are printed in the same collection.

Share of poetry62.0%of own works are poetry (by works, all centuries)Share of the author's own works classified as poetry (詩類), by works and by characters. The site's headline metric.Seven-class genre mix13.4%share of the second-largest class, lettersHow the author's own works divide among the seven major classes (poetry, letters, prefaces and postscripts, biographies, memorials, elegies, miscellany), by century.Share of letters13.4%of own works are lettersShare of own works that are letters (書簡類), by century.Share of court documents5.6%of own works are court documentsShare of own works in the court-document class (公車類: memorials, examination answers, royal edicts), by century.Share of elegies, epitaphs and biographies6.4%of own works commemorate othersShare of own works that commemorate others: elegies (哀祭類) plus epitaphs and biographies within the biography class.Share of prefaces and postscripts3.0%of own works are prefaces and postscriptsShare of own works that are prefaces, postscripts or farewell prefaces (序跋類), by century.Residual 'other' share6.4%of own works are in an 'other' classShare of own works whose minor class is 'other' (其他類) — what the ITKC classification did not subdivide.Characters per poem56characters per poem, median of century mediansMedian and quartiles of the main-text characters of poetry works, by century.

Relationship genres

Addressees of letters and subjects of epitaphs and biographies, parsed from titles as strings. Version 1.0 does not identify persons: the same person called by courtesy name, pen name or office counts as different strings.

Letter addressees and concentration34,890addressee strings across 895 collectionsDistinct addressee strings parsed from the titles of the author's letters, the share of the top one and top three, and a Herfindahl index.Subjects of epitaphs and biographies19,789epitaphs and biographies by the authorsSubject strings parsed from the titles of the author's epitaphs, tomb inscriptions and biographies, with the number of distinct strings.Other writers17,675other writers contributing (summed over collections)Writers other than the author who contributed to the collection (prefaces, postscripts, biographies, elegies, appendices) and their works.

Authors and publication

Author dates, linkage to the civil-examination roster, the lag between death and publication, and translation and punctuation progress.

Date completeness and lifespan98.4%of authors have both birth and death yearsShare of authors with both birth and death years, and the median lifespan of those who have them, by century.Examination linkage and age at passing49.1%of authors linked to the examination rosterShare of authors linked to a passer in the civil-examination roster, and the distribution of the age at passing (East Asian reckoning) for linked authors.Publication lag66years from death to printing (median)Median and quartiles of years from the author's death to the printing of the source edition, by century.Linked-translation progress16.6%of works have a linked translation · 1,105 collections with noneShare of works with a translation linked inside the ITKC database, and the number of collections with no linked work at all. This measures database linkage, not the translation program.Collation and punctuation progress6.5%of works have a collated and punctuated editionShare of works with a linked collated and punctuated edition, by century.