Textbook complicacy and the rules for clear writing

Jaan Mikk 04.12.2013

Components of text complicacy

• Long sentences may overhelm the working memory

• Unknown words unable to create connections• Abstract words are difficult because abstract

thinking developes step by step.

Constructions complicating sentences(Granowsky & Botel, 1974)

Construction Added complicacy

Noun modifiers (adjectives)Negatives Infinitives as subjects

112

PassiveDependent clausesComparativesParticiples

2222

Long connections between words

• The resulting regionalization has applications in developing our understanding of the social and cultural complexion of Europe, and offers potential insights into the long and short-term dynamics of migration and residential mobility (Longley et al., 2011).

• Connected words (in bold) are too far from each other.

Assessing the familiarity of words

• Frequency dictionaires• Dictionaires of scientific terms (in

mathematics etc.)• Expert opininions • Length of words• Percentage of too long words.

Scale of noun terminologicality

• 1 - nouns of everyday use which are not terms (table, horse),

• 2 - nominal terms of the same meaning in everyday speech (velocity, acceleration),

• 3 - nouns, professional terms not used in everyday speech (DNA, transcription).

The scale of noun abstractness• 1 - nouns signifying directly perceivable objects

(e. g. ball, dog),• 2 - nouns signifying perceivable activities and

phenomena (e. g. run, sunshine),• 3 - nouns signifying directly imperceivable

notions (e. g. cause, function).• • We have found the correlation coefficient -0.53

twice and once -0.66 between the abstractness level of a text and its acquisition level.

Validation of the components of text complicacy

• 30 texts from popular-scientific books on physics, chemistry, astronomy and biology. The texts were from 107 up to 227 words long

• Experiments to measure the difficulty level of the texts were carried out with more than 1000 upper grade students. We used cloze procedure, answering questions, difficulty ratings, and summing up the content of the text. Every testee worked with every text.

Correlations of text features with the percentage of unfilled blanks in cloze

procedure Correlation

Sentence length in letter spaces .47Independent sentence length in letter spaces .55Word length in letters .44Percentage of nouns with abstract suffix “us” .41Abstractness of repeating in text nouns .53Percentage of words from a dictionary of foreign words

.51

Percentage of words in 12 letters or more .52

Effective characteristics of electronic textbooks

(Luik, 2004, 140 – 142)

• She used the material of 35 lessons from the textbooks of different subjects.

• 54 students from 10th grade studied all the lessons.

Correlations of the features of electronic textbook with post-test

scoreCharacteristic r

Bookmarks and return button 0,41Percentage of familiar icons 0,36Number of hyperlinks -0,35Terminolocality of nouns -0,47Analogies 0,34Number of videos -0,52Possibility to choose questions -0,52New possibility to answer -0,40

The components of complicacy of verbal problems (Madis Lepik)

• Number of operations needed for the solution of the problem

• Number of quantities (data) needed for the solution but not mentioned in the text of the problem

• Verbal complicacy of the problem• Changing the units.

Inferences from the components of textbook complicacy

• Find summary assessment of textbook complicacy

• Give recommendations for changing the complicacy (rules for clear writing).

Flesch Reading Ease formula• The formula is based mainly on the McCall-Crabbs

reading test• RE = 206.835 – 0.846wl – 1.015sl• wl — the number of syllables per 100 words,

sl — the mean sentence length in words.• Multiple correlation coefficient was 0.70. • The Reading Ease index varies from • 0 — a very complicated text to • 100 — a very comprehensible text

Flesch formula in Word

• Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Word Options.

• Click Proofing. • Make sure Check grammar with spelling is

selected. • Under When correcting grammar in Word,

select the Show readability statistics check box.

Usage of the Flesch formula

• Write the text in Word.• Language editor should be English.• Vali menüüst: Language editor ABC.• Edit the text and at the end you see

readability statsistics– Number of characters, words and sentences,– Average length of words and sentences,– Readability indexes.

Readability formula for Estonian texts

• C = 0. 131 X9 + 9.84X22 - 4,59

• • C - text complicacy index (percentage of unfilled

and incorrectly filled blanks in cloze procedure),• X9 - independent sentence length in letter spaces,

• X22 - abstractness of repeating nouns in the text passage according to three-stage scale.

• The multiple correlation of the formula was 0.67

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

13 16 19 22 25 28

Textbook readability in Form 8

Per

cen

tag

e o

f u

nd

erac

hie

ver

s

PhysicsEstonian

Chemistry

Geography

History

Anatomy

Literature

Rules for clear writing

• Avoid unknown words! • Be careful with new terms!• Prefere concrete words!• Avoid too long sentences!• Use clear structure of your presentation!

Introducing new notions in science teaching (Usova, 1978) • Finding out the main characteristics of the notion by

analysing relevant examples.• Elaborating the definition of the notion.• Analysing examples and non-examples of the notion.• Differentiation of the notion from earlier acquired

notions.• Exploring the relationship of the notion with other

notions.• Application of the notion in solving problems.• Systematisation of the notions.

Meta-analysis of studies of the effect of using the rules (Klare, 1963)

Effect Number of studies (altogether 67)

Positive effect 46

No effect 9

Negative effect 12

Correlations of prior knowledgewith text characteristics

Charactereistic r

Percentage of 12 and more character words -0,50

Independent sentence length in characterswith spaces

-0,49

Average abstactness of nouns repeating inthe text

-0,46

Percentage of different unknown words -0,50