I commonly get the question of what the difference between OG and SWI. While it may seem like a simple question the answer is quite complex.

Let me start by describing what Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) is about. SWI is the scientific study of words to determine the written structure of the English language. This study includes etymology, morphology, and phonology. SWI is descriptive, meaning that data is gathered through observation of the language, and conclusions are drawn by testing hypotheses from the data. SWI is not a curriculum. The tenets of SWI were developed in to mirror the rigor that is used in science as it relates testing hypotheses.

SWI is descriptive, meaning that data is gathered through observation of the language and conclusions are drawn by testing hypotheses about the language from the data. In general, descriptive research seeks to determine, describe, and identify. The construction of dictionaries are descriptive. New words are created and communicated amongst people. Some catch on and become widespread and some do not. When a word is becomes used widely, it is considered for entry into the dictionary. For example, the word <janky> was recently added meaning of poor or unreliable quality. While people have been using this word for some time, it was only recently added. The dictionary is a reflection of our society’s language use rather than being the source to establish words. In essence, a dictionary is a description of what is. Likewise, one of the manners of operation within SWI is to gather data on how the English system is behaving rather being told HOW it is behaving.

Data collected in SWI may be related to graphemes – gathering as many words that have the <ea> grapheme. The analysis might be looking at etymology with a hypothesis of wondering is most words with the grapheme <ea> come from Old English just say. The analysis might be could these <ea> words have used another grapheme such as <ee>. Data collection might be grammatical – gathering words that are past tense without the suffix of <ed>. The analysis might be to see if there are patterns amongst these words. Data analysis could be morphological with attempts to collect words that belong to a certain base element or expanding to find etymological relatives and what is the thread of connection. Phonology is also an area that words are collected – grouping words that have the / ʃ/ pronunciation and finding patterns in which this phoneme is produced.

There are two directions that gathering evidence and testing them serves. One is that there are common “rules” that are often invalidated. For example, the so called spelling rule, “<i> be <e> except after <c>” only applies to about 44 words. It just does not hold water from a scientific perspective.