(Bloomberg Business) — As the Supreme Court heads into its end-of-term heavy season, with gay marriage and Obamacare on the docket, scholars at Dartmouth and the University of Virginia have collaborated on computer-driven research showing that the justices' opinions are growing "more long-winded and grumpier." Here are the key findings.

Law clerks in the works

The researchers—from Dartmouth, Keith Carlson, a computer science Ph.D. candidate, and Daniel Rockmore, a professor of computer science and mathematics; and from Virginia, Michael Livermore, an associate law professor—studied the frequency of use of "content-free" words, which are also known as function words. The words reveal "stylistic fingerprints" that are "the foundation for the large-scale study of literary style," the scholars write.