The Works
over time
21 of The Works's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, measured sentence by sentence. How the writing has moved over the years, how it compares with 4 other high street retailers, and what it sounds like in its own words.
- Pages measured
- 21
- Years covered
- –
- Archived before ChatGPT
- 0
- Blog · press
- 12 · 9
21 pages only. The writing numbers on this page are context, not findings: there are no sector rankings or comparisons below 30 pages.
01 · Homepage
One capture a year
The Works's homepage from 2006 to 2025, closest to 1 July, from the Internet Archive. Pick a year or press play. Each headline is quoted from its capture and links to the archived copy.
Screenshot of The Works’s homepage (theworks.co.uk) as archived by the Internet Archive on 1 Jul 2025. © The Works or its licensors. Shown for comparison and review; not endorsed by The Works.
Homepage
2025
“Toys & Games”
Page title
The Works | Get Huge Savings On Arts, Crafts And Books
- 2009Discount books available at The Works.
- 2022Art & Craft
- 2024Toys & Games
15 captures. Screenshots are rendered from the archive and can pull in images archived later than the page itself; dates come from the capture. Years without a capture are greyed out in the strip.
02 · Measures by year
How the writing moved
Every year’s pages, averaged. Pick a measure. Hatched bars rest on fewer than 10 pages: context, not a finding. The page count sits under each year.
Years with pages: . Dates come from page metadata, structured data, the URL, or the month a page was first archived (a latest possible date).
03 · Against its sector
The Works among high street retailers
Each dot is one brand’s mean across all its measured pages; the tick is the sector average. Only brands with 10 or more measured pages are shown or counted. The Works has fewer than 30, so it is placed for context but not ranked. Select a dot to open that brand.
04 · Every page
All 31 pages, by year
The full list behind every number above, with links to the live page or the archived copy. 21 count towards the measures; the rest were not measured (3 pdf report (annual report, info pack), 4 under 150 words of text, 3 mostly short lines (lists, tables, link pages) rather than prose). Pages with no reliable date count in the overall numbers but in no year.
In the overall numbers, no year21 pages
- Supply chainundated · press · 767 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Easter Ideasundated · blog · 734 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Christmas Ideasundated · blog · 1,846 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Free Crochet Patterns & Projects for Every Skill Levelundated · blog · 624 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Screen‑Free Hobby Inspirationundated · blog · 396 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- https://corporate.theworks.co.uk/download_file/view/cf056e8c-e6c6-483b-aca6-cfeea0a0df83undated · press · 11,325 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- https://corporate.theworks.co.uk/download_file/view/e6c6e560-319e-4622-92db-0dcbafc319e4undated · press · 1,535 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Board committeesundated · press · 336 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Family Time Ideasundated · blog · 479 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Halloween Ideasundated · blog · 699 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Student Tipsundated · blog · 436 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Free Printable Activity Sheets for Kidsundated · blog · 1,517 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Corporate governanceundated · press · 669 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Shareholder FAQundated · press · 437 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Books in Orderundated · blog · 1,276 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Screen‑Free Art and Craft Ideas & DIY Project Inspirationundated · blog · 3,670 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Book Guides & Reading Inspiration for All Agesundated · blog · 3,909 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Ideas for Kidsundated · blog · 1,334 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Our strategyundated · press · 900 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Investment caseundated · press · 416 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
- Our leadershipundated · press · 954 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
Not measured10 pages
- Regulatory news6 Oct 2026 · press · 31 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
- TheWorks.co.uk plc Annual Report and Accounts 2024undated · info_pack · 65,012 wordsPDF report (annual report, info pack): listed, but kept out of every measure
- TheWorks.co.uk plc Annual Report and Accounts 2022undated · info_pack · 75,279 wordsPDF report (annual report, info pack): listed, but kept out of every measure
- PowerPoint Presentationundated · info_pack · 1,904 wordsPDF report (annual report, info pack): listed, but kept out of every measure
- Financial calendarundated · press · 13 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
- Results, reports and presentationsundated · press · 18 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
- Advisors and registrarsundated · press · 224 wordsMostly short lines (lists, tables, link pages) rather than prose
- Share price toolsundated · press · 182 wordsMostly short lines (lists, tables, link pages) rather than prose
- Our business modelundated · press · 753 wordsMostly short lines (lists, tables, link pages) rather than prose
- Our policiesundated · press · 61 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
05 · Method
How this was measured
The pages
The Works's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, fetched from the live site in 2026 and from the Internet Archive for 2015 to November 2022. Homepages are shown as captures; product and help pages are not measured.
The measures
Code counts from ScriptGrain’s writing instruments: sentence length and rhythm, contractions, pronouns, punctuation, long words, and three published lists of AI-associated words. No AI model reads or judges any page.
What it cannot say
These measures describe style. They cannot tell who or what wrote a page, and nothing here says or implies that any brand used AI to write.
Sample sizes
Every number carries its page count. Years under 10 pages, and before-and-after comparisons with under 10 pages on a side, are shown as context only.
- Sentence length
- Average words per sentence.
- Sentence rhythm
- How much sentence length varies (standard deviation over mean). Higher reads less even.
- Contractions
- Contractions (we're, you'll, it's) per 1,000 words. A rough gauge of how conversational the writing is.
- "You"
- Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "you": how much the writing addresses the reader.
- "We"
- Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "we": how much the writing talks about the organisation.
- Questions
- Question marks per 1,000 words.
- Exclamations
- Exclamation marks per 1,000 words.
- Long words
- Share of words with seven or more letters.
- Em dashes
- Em dashes per 1,000 words.
- AI-associated words
- Words from SGR-007's three AI-associated lists, per 1,000 words. These are style markers that people used long before ChatGPT; a higher rate says nothing about who or what wrote the page.
- AI-era marketing words
- Marketing words that became more common in AI-era copy (seamless, elevate, unlock...), per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
- Quieter LLM-favoured words
- Everyday words language models are known to over-use, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
- AI-associated sentence shapes
- Sentence patterns such as "not just X, but Y", found by ScriptGrain's cliche checker, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
- Page length
- Average words per page.
Studies: SGR-009: Do brands in the same sector sound the same? · SGR-010: How UK brands write · SGR-011: Did brand writing change after ChatGPT?.