My answer to Code Academy's Censor Dispenser challenge.

censor_dispenser.py

email_one = open("email_one.txt", "r").read()
email_two = open("email_two.txt", "r").read()
email_three = open("email_three.txt", "r").read()
email_four = open("email_four.txt", "r").read()



proprietary_terms = ["she", "personality matrix", "sense of self", "self-preservation", "learning algorithm", "her", "herself"]
negative_words = ["concerned", "behind", "danger", "dangerous", "alarming", "alarmed", "out of control", "help", "unhappy", "bad", "upset", "awful", "broken", "damage", "damaging", "dismal", "distressed", "distressed", "concerning", "horrible", "horribly", "questionable"]

def censor(email, words):
  e = email.lower()
  w = words.lower()
  ind = e.find(w)
  while ind > 0:
    if (e[ind-1:ind].isspace() == False and e[ind-1:ind] not in ('(',',',')','"')):
      ind = e.find(w,ind+1)
    elif (e[ind+len(w)].isspace()==False and e[ind+len(w)] not in (')',',','"','.')):
      ind = e.find(w,ind+1)
    else:
      email = email[:ind] + "*"*len(words) + email[ind+len(words):]
      ind = e.find(w,ind+1)
  return(email)

def censor2(email,words):
  word_list = sorted(words,key=len,reverse=True)
  for word in word_list:
    email = censor(email,word)
  return(email)

def word3(phrase,word):
  p = phrase.lower()
  w = word.lower()
  loc1 = p.find(w)
  loc2 = p.find(w,loc1+1)
  ind = loc2
  while ind > 0:
    if p[ind-1:ind].isspace() == False:
      ind = p.find(w,ind+1)
    else:
      phrase = phrase[:ind] + "*"*len(word) + phrase[ind+len(word):]
      ind = p.find(w,ind+1)
  return(phrase)
  


def censor3(email,proprietary_terms,negative_words):
  for word in negative_words:
    email = word3(email,word)
  email = censor2(email,proprietary_terms)
  return(email)

def censor4(email,proprietary_terms,negative_words):
  email = censor3(email,proprietary_terms,negative_words)
  e_l = email.split()
  ind_list = []
  r = range(len(e_l))
  for i in r:
    if '*' in e_l[i]:
      ind_list.append(i)
  for num in ind_list:
    e_l[num-1]='*'*len(e_l[num-1])
    e_l[num+1]='*'*len(e_l[num+1])
  email = ' '.join(e_l)
  return(email)

The naming makes it very confusing and complicated to understand. You should add some comments to explain a bit.

It doesn't censor first word from emails, because of while loop in censor function.