3 July 2006 (Readability_notes.doc)
Definitions of readability from Dubay:
George Klare (1963) defines readability as “the ease of understanding or comprehension due to the style of writing”… as separate from issues such as content, coherence, and organization…
…G. Harry McLaughlin (1969) defines readability as: “The degree to which a given class of people find certain reading matter compelling and comprehensible”…
Edgar Dale and Jeanne Chall’s (1949) definition may be the most comprehensive: “The sum total
(including all the interactions) of all those elements within a given piece of printed material that affect the success a group of reader have with it. The success is the extent to which they understand it, read it at an optimal speed, and find it interesting.” (3)
Dubay concludes, “Today, the readability formulas are more popular than ever” (57). Is that true?
Review of required and suggested reading:
Klare –
Redish –
Schriver –
Dubay –
Meyer – “people remember more and read faster information which is logically organized with a topical plan than they do when the same information is presented in a disorganized, random fashion…” (Dubay 33) Note the implications for information mapping or for structured (modular) writing.
Armbruster – textual coherence: global (high-level ideas) vs. local (ideas within a sentence);
“Content is an aspect of structure, and organization is the supreme source of comprehension difficulty… local coherence…carries meanings from one phrase, clause, or sentence to another.” (Dubay 34)
Hull – “an increase in the number of adjectives and adverbs before a noun lowers comprehension. His study indicates that the modifier load is almost as predictive as a syllable count , more causal, and more helpful for rewriting … [He] recommends eliminating strings of nouns, adjectives, and adverbs as modifiers. Instead, writers should use prepositional phrases and place adjectives in the predicate position (after the verb) rather than in the distributive position (before the noun).
” (Dubay 51; emphasis mine)
Readability formulas stress
 diction (typically measured in mean syllables per word [ASW])
 syntax (typically measured in mean words per sentence[AWS])
Readability formulas are better at predicting problems than at helping writers compose.

Connaster, B. 1999. Last rites for readability formulas in technical communication. Journal of
Technical Writing and Communication 29 (3): 271-287.
DuBay, W. 2004. The principles of readability . National Adult Literacy Database
< http://www.nald.ca/ > 26 June 2007.
Hargis, G. 2000. Readability and computer documentation. ACM Journal of Computer
Documentation 24 (3):122-131.
Klare, G. 2000. Readable computer documentation. ACM Journal of Computer
Documentation 24 (3): 148-168.
Klare, G. 2000. The measurement of readability: Useful information for communicators. ACM
Journal of Computer Documentation 24 (3): 107-121.
Longo, B. 2004. Toward an informed citizenry: Readability formulas as cultural artifacts.
Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 34 (3): 165-172.
Redish, J. 2000. Readability formulas have even more limitations that Klare discusses . ACM
Journal of Computer Documentation 24 (3): 132-137.
Schriver, K. 2000. Readability formulas in the new millennium: What’s the use?
ACM Journal of Computer Documentation 24 (3): 138-140.
Hanna, Jim. 1992. Writer worksheets: Rewrite creatively (Part I). Technical Communication
39 (2): 271-282.
Although the Hanna articles are pretty dated, he supplies a wealth of information about rewriting and about his use of a style checker (for readability purposes) in doing so.
Hanna, Jim. 1992. Writer worksheets: Rewrite creatively (Part II). Technical Communication
39 (3): 428-436.
Spache (grades 1-3) and Dale-Chall (grades 4 and up) formulas: http://www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/tools/okapi/okapi.php
Original Dale-Chall (1948) easy word list: http://www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/tools/okapi/okapimanual/dalechalllist.php
Lexile Framework: http://www.lexile.com/
Fry Readability Graphs: http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/fry/fry2.html
Johnson, Chris and Keith Johnson. n.d. Readability. Timetabler
< http://www.timetabler.com/reading.html
> 3 July 2007.
Provides formulas for Gunning 'FOG' Readability Test , Fry Readability Graph , Flesch-Kincaid
Formula , Powers-Sumner-Kearl Formula (devised for primary age books), McLaughlin 'SMOG'
Formula , FORCAST Formula (devised for US Army technical manuals).
McLaughlin SMOG Formula: http://uuhsc.utah.edu/pated/authors/readability.html
Readability scores. n.d. Microsoft < http://office.microsoft.com/enus/word/HP051863181033.aspx
> 2 July 2007.

Provides formulas used in Microsoft Office Word 2003 for Flesch Reading Ease score and
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score.
The following vocabulary and list of writing styles were taken from Chapters 2 –4 of Jones’
Technical Writing Style . All page references are to his text.
You are responsible for the following vocabulary:
Discourse communities – “a group of people who commonly associate with each other… share a special language, experiences, basic knowledge, expectations, values, methodologies, idiosyncrasies, and goals.” (20)
Style – “choices of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences, and how you connect these sentences; the unity and coherence of your paragraphs and larger segments; your tone; and your persona in your writing.” (43)
Stylistics –
Grammar – (1) “’A set of rules and examples dealing with the syntax and morphology of a standard language’” and (2) “’In linguistics, a term for the syntactic and morphological system which every unimpaired person acquires from infancy when learning a language.’” (43)
Syntax – “the structure of sentences and…the rules governing the order in which words and clu sters of words can appear.” (43)
Mophology – “the structure of words…inflectional endings and the way words can be built up out of smaller units.” (43)
Rhetoric – “the way information is known and expressed in a discourse community” (64); consequently, “science itself is a rhetorical activity.” (65)
Rogerian argument –
Aristotle’s 3 modes of persuasion – ethos
– “the character of the writer” (73) logos
– “the nature of the message or the quality of the data” (73) pathos
– “the emotion of the audience” (73)
Toulmin logic – claim, grounds, warrant, backing, rebuttal
Jones identifies the following kinds of styles:
 a primer style – “an elementary writing style that consists of a series of short senten ces.” (47)
 a telegraphic style – “omits articles, conjunctions, and transitional phrases.” (48)
 a passive style – in which “it is often difficult to determine who is doing what.” (48)
 a verb style – “based on verbs, on action.” (49)

 a nominal (noun) style – characterized by “abundant use of nominalizations, nouns, noun strings, or noun adjectives.” (49)
 an affected style – “combines the passive and nominal styles, throws in pretentiousness and gobbledygook, and otherwise strives for complexity”; opposite of a plain style.(51)
 a plain (reader-friendly) style – “is straightforward and easy to understand”; characterized by “simplicity, clarity, accuracy, sincerity, directness, and objectivity.”
(52)
 a complex style – “is a matter of content and all of the elements of style.” (53)
 a literary style – “an ornate or highly learned style” including “anecdote, figurative language (for example, metaphors and similes), imagery, hyperbole, understatement, irony, alliteration, crisis, plot, structure, dialogue, subtlety, suspense, tension, themes, voice, and so on.” (55)
You have 20 minutes for this quiz. You may use your texts; however, if you do quote, paraphrase, or summarize information from any of your texts, please cite the source (title and page parenthetically). Please write as much as you can as quickly as you can.
1. Summarize the arguments for and against the use of readability formulas for revising technical documents.
2. Summarize the arguments for and against Jones claim in Chapter 4 that “all fields and all kinds of technical prose are fundamentally pers uasive or rhetorical.” (63)
Please complete the following tasks:
1. Very quickly, review the 6 sample passages (available online or from D2L Content as a
PDF or Word doc) that you glanced at last week. Identify the prevalent writing style (see
Jones’ Chapter 3 and listed above) for each passage.
2. List (rank) the passages from easiest to read (1) to most difficult (6). Don’t spend time worrying about what easiest means though you may find it useful to jot notes about why you found a sample difficult.
3. Quickly examine the sentence types (simple, compound, complex, compound-complex) in each passage. Do passages show a preponderance of sentence types? If so, do the more difficult passages contain more complex or compound-complex sentences?
4. Now examine the 6 sample passages with readability data (available online or from D2L
Content as a PDF or Word doc). Do the readability statistics suggest a different ranking of the passages? If so, what?
By answering questions 1 –4, you can fill in the following grid, providing values and text:
Sample # Style
1 – Robinson
Ranking (1 = easiest; 6 = most difficult) based on
Initial reading Sentence types Readability stats

Sample #
2
– Gopen & Swan
3
– Schiller
4 – Jones
5 – Christensen
6
– Petrunkevitch
Style Ranking (1 = easiest; 6 = most difficult) based on
Initial reading Sentence types Readability stats