DATA - digitally assisted text analysis

DATA is an acronym for 'digitally assisted text analysis'. The operative word here is 'assisted'. There is no claim that doing things digitally is a finer or cooler thing than plain old reading. There is merely a claim that in some situations the digital manipulation of texts comes in handy and lets you do things that otherwise would take much longer or might be impracticable altogether. Whenever it does, texts for a while become 'data' — a word that grates on the humanist's ear, even though it is a perfectly good and simple Latin word for the 'given'

http://literaryinformatics.northwestern.edu/