These supply invaluable guidance to a range of OED statistics but need to be used with caution. Willinsky had access to electronic versions of the OED which are no longer available, and was able to make independent searches of OED1 and Burchfield's Supplement, for example, which are now no longer possible. (See OED editions: Which edition contains what?).

However, it is often difficult to replicate his results, which may indicate flaws in the software or various searching mechanisms he was using, while some of Willinsky's own reports of his findings are inconsistent (e.g. Table 9.1 states that OED has 1,251 quotations from Ulysses, and Table 9.2 gives the figure as 1,302. We have found 1,285 quotations from Ulysses using the OED2 CD-ROM version 3.1; 1,266 with OED2 Online; and 1,415 with OED3 Online, i.e. including the revised alphabet range m-Papua New Guinean).