Word count

[BashBedlam]

In python,

for word in dataSplit :

will iterate over every word in the data, so...

def searchText ():
	print("Please enter a word that will be used to search a text file")
	search_word = input()
	textFile = open ('assignment8.txt', "r")
	data = textFile.read()
	dataSplit = data.split ()
	count = 0
	for word in dataSplit :
		if word == search_word :
			count = count + 1
	print (count)

searchText ()

will count every occurrence of the search word. You almost had it.