87 - 52 Text Organization and Comprehensibility in Technical Writing

Technical texts often introduce scientific principles by deriving the principle prior to stating the principle itself. This "proof-first" organization violates writing guidelines suggested by current text learning theories. The current research compared the effects on comprehension of this type of structure with its logical alternative, a "principle-first" structure. Results indicate that readers spend more time on information when it occurs first. Thus the principle-first structure focuses attention on the principle and the proof-first structure focuses attention on the proof. Additionally, readers found it easier to predict what was important in principle-first texts. and used the principle-first structure more often in summarizing. These findings suggest that readers find a principle-first organization easier to process and store. Ongoing research is investigating differences in what readers learn with these two structures.