This study examines whether the readability of medical research journal abstracts changed from 1960 to 2010. Abstracts from medical journals were downloaded from PubMed.org in ten-year batches (1960s, 1970s, etc.). Abstracts in each decade underwent processing via a custom Python script to determine their Coleman-Liau Index (CLI) readability score. Analysis using one-way ANOVA found statistical...

Readability criteria have been addressed as a measurement of the quality of graph visualizations. In this paper, we argue that readability criteria are necessary but not sufficient. We propose a new kind of criteria, namely faithfulness, to evaluate the quality of graph layouts. We introduce a general model for quantify faithfulness, and contrast it with the well established readability criteri...

In an effort to make reading more accessible, an automated readability formula can help students to retrieve appropriate material for their language level. This study attempts to discover and analyze a set of possible features that can be used for single-sentence readability prediction in Russian. We test the influence of syntactic features on predictability of structural complexity. The readab...

Historically, anti-vaccination sentiment has existed in many populations. Mass media plays a large role in disseminating and sensationalizing vaccine objections, especially via the medium of the Internet. Based on studies of processing fluency, we assumed that anti-influenza vaccination online messages to be more readable and more fluently processed than pro-influenza vaccination online message...

In this paper we investigate the impact of translation on readability. We propose a quantitative analysis of several shallow, lexical and morpho-syntactic features that have been traditionally used for assessing readability and have proven relevant for this task. We conduct our experiments on a parallel corpus of transcribed parliamentary sessions and we investigate readability metrics for the ...

Introduction: Medical Assistance, Assistance and research, the principles initiated by Nuremberg Code, were materialized through written documents called Consent Forms. The present study aims to assess understanding of consent form in hospitals state São Paulo. Method: Terms that meet inclusion criteria retrieved analysis with textual readability analysis, specific online assessment instrument ...

Background: Hundreds of patient education materials i.e. pamphlets are annually published in healthcare systems following their design, correction, and revision. Aim: to design and evaluate patient education pamphlets based on readability indexes and their comparison with literacy level in society. Method: The average literacy level among 500 patients admitted to two training hospitals in Bojnu...

IN A RECENT ISSUE of this journal, Fry (4) described "a readability formula that saves time." The panel immediately below gives a method of assessing readability which is even quicker—and so simple that one statistician who glanced at an earlier version of this paper thought that it was a "put on," a fake. Although this system, SMOG Grading, is laughably simple, it is in fact more valid than pr...

Readability criteria have been commonly used to measure the quality of graph visualizations. In this paper we argue that readability criteria, while necessary, are not sufficient. We propose a new kind of criterion, generically termed faithfulness, for evaluating graph layout methods. We propose a general model for quantifying faithfulness, and contrast it with the well established readability ...

STUDY DESIGN Cross-sectional analysis of online spine-related patient education materials from leading academic centers. OBJECTIVE To assess the readability levels of spine surgery-related patient education materials available on the websites of academic orthopedic surgery departments. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA The Internet is becoming an increasingly popular resource for patient education...