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{{Reading}}
'''Readability''' is the ease with which a [[Reading (process)|reader]] can [[Understanding|understand]] a [[Writing|written text]]. The concept exists in both
Higher readability in a text eases reading effort and speed for the general population of readers. For those who do not have high [[reading comprehension]], readability is necessary for understanding and applying a given text. Techniques to simplify readability are essential to communicate a set of information to the intended audience.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Link to external site |first1=this link will open in a new tab |last2=Link to external site |first2=this link will open in a new tab |date=2023 |title=Text Simplification to Specific Readability Levels |journal=Mathematics |volume=11 |issue=9 |language=English |pages=2063 |doi=10.3390/math11092063|id={{ProQuest|2812618745}} |doi-access=free }}</ref> Whether it is code, news information, or storytelling, every writer has a target audience that they have to adjust their readability levels to.
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Several studies in the 1940s showed that even small increases in readability greatly increases readership in large-circulation newspapers.
In 1947, Donald Murphy of ''Wallace's Farmer'' used a split-run<ref name="Murphy2">Murphy, D. 1947. "How plain talk increases readership 45% to 60%." ''Printer's ink.'' 220:35–37.</ref> edition to study the effects of making text easier to read. He found that reducing from the 9th to the 6th-grade reading level increased readership by 43% for an article about 'nylon'. He also found a 60% increase in readership for an article on corn, with better responses from people under 35.<ref name="Murphy2" /> The result was a gain of 42,000 readers in a circulation of 275,000.
Wilber Schramm, who directed the Communications Research program at the University of Illinois interviewed 1,050 newspaper readers in 1947. He found that an easier reading style helps to determine how much of an article is read. This was called reading persistence, depth, or perseverance He also found that people will read less of long articles than of short ones, for example, a story nine paragraphs long will lose 3 out of 10 readers by the fifth paragraph. In contrast, a shorter story will lose only 2 out of 10 readers.<ref name="Schramm">Schramm, W. 1947. "Measuring another dimension of newspaper readership." ''Journalism quarterly'' 24:293–306.</ref>
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Both Rudolf Flesch and Robert Gunning worked extensively with newspapers and the wire services in improving readability. Mainly through their efforts in a few years, the readability of US newspapers went from the 16th to the 11th-grade level, where it remains today.
The two publications with the largest circulations, ''TV Guide'' (13 million) and ''Reader's Digest'' (12 million), are written at the 9th-grade level.<ref name="DuBay">DuBay, W. H. 2006. ''Smart language: Readers, Readability, and the Grading of Text''. Costa Mesa:Impact Information.</ref> The most popular novels are written at the 7th-grade level. This supports the fact that the average adult reads at the 9th-grade level. It also shows that, for recreation, people read texts that are two grades below their actual reading level.<ref name="
==Early research==
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==Text leveling==
The earliest reading ease assessment is the subjective judgment termed '''text leveling'''. Formulas do not fully address the various content, purpose, design, visual input, and organization of a text.<ref name="Clay">Clay, M. 1991. ''Becoming literate: The construction of inner control.'' Portsmouth, NH: Heinneman.</ref><ref name="frylevel">Fry, E. B. 2002. "Text readability versus leveling." ''Reading Teacher'' 56 no. 23:286–292.</ref> Text leveling is commonly used to rank the reading ease of texts in areas where reading difficulties are easy to identify, such as books for young children. At higher levels, ranking reading ease becomes more difficult, as individual difficulties become harder to identify. This has led to better ways to assess reading ease.
==Vocabulary frequency lists==
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Educational psychologist [[Edward Thorndike]] of Columbia University noted that, in Russia and Germany, teachers used word frequency counts to match books to students. Word skill was the best sign of intellectual development, and the strongest predictor of reading ease. In 1921, Thorndike published ''Teachers Word Book'', which contained the [[word frequency|frequencies]] of 10,000 words.<ref>Thorndike E.L. 1921 ''The teacher's word book''. 1932 ''A teacher's word book of the twenty thousand words found most frequently and widely in general reading for children and young people''. 1944 (with J.E. Lorge) ''The teacher's word book of 30,000 words''.</ref> It made it easier for teachers to choose books that matched class reading skills. It also provided a basis for future research on reading ease.
Until computers came along, word frequency lists were the best aids for grading reading ease of texts.<ref name="
==Early children's readability formulas==
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During the recession of the 1930s, the U.S. government invested in [[adult education]]. In 1931, [[Douglas Waples]] and [[Ralph W. Tyler|Ralph Tyler]] published ''What Adults Want to Read About.'' It was a two-year study of adult reading interests. Their book showed not only what people read but what they would like to read. They found that many readers lacked suitable reading materials: they would have liked to learn but the reading materials were too hard for them.<ref name="Waples">Waples, D. and R. Tyler. 1931. ''What adults want to read about.''Chicago: University of Chicago Press.</ref>
[[Lyman Bryson]] of [[Teachers College, Columbia University]] found that many adults had poor reading ability due to poor education. Even though [[college]]s had long tried to teach how to write in a clear and readable style, Bryson found that it was rare. He wrote that such language is the result of a "...[[discipline]] and artistry that few people who have ideas will take the trouble to achieve... If simple language were easy, many of our problems would have been solved long ago."<ref name="
In 1934, Ralph Ojemann investigated adult reading skills, factors that most directly affect reading ease, and causes of each level of difficulty. He did not invent a formula, but a method for assessing the difficulty of materials for [[parent education]]. He was the first to assess the validity of this method by using 16 magazine passages tested on actual readers. He evaluated 14 measurable and three reported factors that affect reading ease.
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:Grade level= 0.4 * ( (average sentence length) + (percentage of Hard Words) )
:Where: Hard Words = words with more than two syllables.<ref name="
===Fry readability graph===
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* Difficult concepts;<ref name="Chall"/>
* Idea density;<ref name="Dolch">Dolch. E. W. 1939. "Fact burden and reading difficulty." ''Elementary English review'' 16:135–138.</ref>
* Human interest;<ref name="
* Nominalization;<ref name="ColemanBlu">Coleman, E. B. and P. J. Blumenfeld. 1963. "Cloze scores of nominalization and their grammatical transformations using active verbs." ''Psychology reports'' 13:651–654.</ref>
* Active and passive voice;<ref name="Gough">Gough, P. B. 1965. "Grammatical transformations and the speed of understanding." ''Journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior'' 4:107–111.</ref><ref name="Coleman">Coleman, E. B. 1966. "Learning of prose written in four grammatical transformations." ''Journal of Applied Psychology'' 49:332–341.</ref><ref name="Clark">Clark, H. H. and S. E. Haviland. 1977. "Comprehension and the given-new contract." In ''Discourse production and comprehension,'' ed. R. O. Freedle. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Press, pp. 1–40.</ref><ref name="Hornby">Hornby, P. A. 1974. "Surface structure and presupposition." ''Journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior'' 13:530–538.</ref>
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The accuracy of readability formulas increases when finding the average readability of a large number of works. The tests generate a score based on characteristics such as [[statistical average]] word length (which is used as an unreliable proxy for [[Semantics|semantic]] difficulty; sometimes [[word frequency]] is taken into account) and sentence length (as an unreliable proxy for [[Syntax|syntactic]] complexity) of the work.
Most experts agree that simple readability formulas like [[Flesch–Kincaid readability tests|Flesch–Kincaid grade-level]] can be highly misleading.<ref name="KlareBuck3"
Writing experts have warned that an attempt to simplify the text only by changing the length of the words and sentences may result in text that is more difficult to read.<ref name="Fleschwrite2">{{cite book |last=Flesch |first=R. |title=The Art of Readable Writing |publisher=Harper |year=1949 |location=New York |oclc=318542 |author-link=Rudolf Flesch}}</ref> All the variables are tightly related. If one is changed, the others must also be adjusted, including approach, voice, person, tone, typography, design, and organization.
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* [https://readable.io/ Readability Scoring Tool - Scores against many readability formulas at once - Readable.io]
* [http://www.joeswebtools.com/text/readability-tests/ Readability Tests - Joe's Web Tools]
* [https://www.usingenglish.com/resources/text-statistics/ Text Content Analysis Tool -UsingEnglish.com]
* [https://hellotools.org/en/check-and-measure-the-readability-of-a-website-text Check text readability online]
{{Readability tests}}
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