What makes writing more readable? | Hacker News Reader

What makes writing more readable?

pudding.cool

13 pointssdoering12 comments

Clear writing requires the author to put themselves in the readers' shoes. It's not a mechanical translation of complex language to plain language. Short sentences with simple vocabulary can easily be confusing as well, especially if the shortening involves truncating important information.

For instance, the web page gives the following example:

"A strong tremor in her hand makes it impossible for her to use American Sign Language." is thought to be too complex, and got turned into "Her hand shakes so she does not do sign language."

This is an absurd change in my opinion. The second sentence implies that sign language is not doable if people have shaky hands, which is false. This would confuse any sign language user who has shaky hands. The original sentence tells us that it is the badness of her tremor that prevents her from signing, which really puts an emphasis on the profoundness of her disability.

A more sensible change would be "Her hands are too shaky to do sign language."

Moreover, plain-ization turns that coherent paragraph to pieces of information dump. This is fine if the intent is to do an info-dump, (government documents, for example).

In most cases, though, the author is making a point. There is the proposition, the supporting evidence, the causes, and the effects. That's why writers vary their sentence structure: to bring out the relationship between one sentence and the next. Some plain language examples on this web pages throw away all of those, so while making individual sentences easier to read, it disintegrates the coherence of the whole paragraph.

I was irked by the exact example you picked. I think it could have been solved with:

"Her hand shakes so much she can't do sign language."

But most other paragraphs were imho more relaxing and easy to parse. I remember in university when we were (literature as well as history department) trained to write "scientifically" (meaning complex, riddled with foreign words, preposterous). I understand the value of technical terms and words with very clear and specific meaning to a field. But the rest was superfluous BS to signify the belonging to the intellectual caste.

But maybe that is typical for German universities. I don't know.

I'm sympathetic to this too. If I were writing a program that critiqued a sample and suggested alternatives, I might give the output to the writer and ask "why not this?" But not insist they adopt it verbatim.

Unfortunately, in her examples, "simple" becomes a style I would call "lifeless."

>Readability scores are easy to understand. Many people use these scores to help them write. Some groups that use readability scores are:

This is what a second grade reading book would look like: boring and repetitive.

On the other hand, what it replaces:

> Moreover, the simplicity of readability checkers has enabled their widespread adoption. Military engineers use them to help write technical documents. Governments and doctors use them to guide communication for a general audience. Schools and textbook manufacturers use them to tailor reading assignments to particular grade levels and students.

.. is not that great, either. (I happen to like the word "moreover" but maybe that's just me!) It has several flaws which she's corrected:

1. Vague, pretentious, academic-sounding words ("enabled their widespread adoption").

2. Just plain unnecessary words ("to help write technical documents" could just be "for technical documents" -- what else would you use them for, if not writing?)

"guide communication for a general audience" -- totally unnecessary and pretentious. Something a committee would write.

"tailor reading assignments to particular grade levels and students" -- also verbose and unnecessary.

3. Passive voice ("has enabled")

On the other hand, the bullet points are babyish and condescending. So how about this?

"Moreover, readability checkers are simple, and they're being used more and more in writing. Military engineers, governments, doctors, and schools all use them."

Do you need to say HOW each group is using them? No, you don't; it's obvious.

Are there any software that helps with readability?

I'm aware of the Hemmingway App ( https://hemingwayapp.com/ ), but are there others?

Yes, simplified writings are more readable. However, it isn't clear when it is appropriate to use simplified writing and when it is appropriate to use more complex sentence structures.

The best explainer for sentence construction, structure, and flow through paragraphs, I've ever read was in Joseph M Williams Style: Towards Clarity and Grace[1]. In it, he works methodically from word choice, to sentence, to paragraph, then to chapter, in order to explain clear and graceful writing, with excellent examples. Anyone can read it and come away a much better writer. In particular, chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6, are very helpful for explaining the uses of emphasis and how to write coherent and clear paragraphs.

[1]: https://sites.duke.edu/niou/files/2014/07/WilliamsJosephM199... (direct PDF link to an older version)

serifs! https://ti.arc.nasa.gov/m/profile/adegani/Flight-Deck_Docume...

A dyslectic friend refuses to read sans-serif fonts, because she can't follow the lines. Please do use serifed fonts, except maybe for short labels!

> However, it is also evident that they somewhat aid the horizontal movement of the eye along the printed line—the serifs at the top and bottom of a character create a “railroad track” for the eye to follow along the line of print. Therefore, when using a typeface without serifs, adequate spacing between the lines of print should be used in order to prevent the eye from bridging (slipping) to the adjoining line (Craig, 1980).

I like serif fonts, but on page 31 of that document, "List of Design Recommendations," it says: "Sans-serif fonts are usually more legible than fonts with serifs."

The way this article presents the "easier to read" text, seems like a great way to be more inclusive to all kinds of readers.

Makes me think (and hope) something like this could be automated in the future, where readers could adjust the stylistic complexity of the any text they come across.

I'm sympathetic, but there's a line between these two, the simplified is a bit too simplified.

Agreed, the plain text loses a bit too much of the original meaning. For example they refer to ID people without saying what it means. I had to flip back to the non-plain version where they write Intellectually Disabled before introducing it as an abbreviation. (Edit they actually list it higher in the article in the plain version, guess I missed it while skimming, but they write the full words multiple times in the non-plain. It still feels like rather than just simplifying what they say, they just say less).

It also feels like the non-plain version is more complex than it needs to be. I agree with the point though, maybe they're exaggerating both sides. But I feel like either side could benefit from being a bit closer to the middle of the complexity spectrum.

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