The phrase "a sample of text" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it when referring to a portion or excerpt of written material, often for analysis or demonstration purposes.
Example: "To illustrate my point, I will provide a sample of text from the original document."
Alternatives: "an excerpt of text" or "a snippet of text."
The coding manual was then checked with L.Y. (co-author) and a sample of texts second coded, to ensure good inter-rater reliability.
For a more detailed discussion of this text (including the inter-semiotic relations between text and image), see Matthiessen and Pun (forthcoming). Figure 15 Examples of favoured logico-semantic types in clauses complexes in a sample of texts operating in contexts characterized by different values in the field of activity — i.e. socio-semiotic process.
A sample of texts was double read to check inter-reviewer reliability.
A sample of texts from questionnaires and interview transcripts was studied and coded by MM and PW independently.
The task they set themselves was trying to accurately identify the cancer diagnoses in a sample of free text reports about a variety of clinical cases.
Figure 1 shows a sample of handwritten text of the same characters and Figure 2 samples with different characters.
An alternative is a text archive, which Halliday and Matthiessen (2014: 70 71) describe as follows: The difference between a corpus and a text archive is not a sharp one; but the general principle is that a corpus represents a systematic sample of text according to clearly established criteria whereas a text archive is assembled in a more opportunistic fashion ….
The difference between a corpus and a text archive is not a sharp one; but the general principle is that a corpus represents a systematic sample of text according to clearly established criteria whereas a text archive is assembled in a more opportunistic fashion ….
Figure 2 shows a sample of curved text-line image.
