The Neurocognition of Reading and Writing

The material which follows was designed to assist those writing for publications having as an objective, persuasion, regardless of subject. Four critical questions are directed at those who write for such publications. When submitting an article, what are the chances your work will be read? If your article is read, what are the chances it will be understood? If understood, how likely is it the readers viewpoint will more closely resemble yours, after reading? What is the probability that even after agreement with your position, the reader will take some action to help achieve your goals? The preceding four questions would appear to represent the raison dtre for the existence of political writing, regardless of ideological orientation. Yet, I have never seen any discussion directed addressing these questions. Of all such political publications, Among the large number of political blogs, there seldom is much attention directed to formal evaluation of submittals. Thousands of words comprise the daily take, of efforts to persuade readers of a importance and validity of proffered viewpoints. Given the passion and effort going into this work, the disregard for the likelihood of success is a never ending surprise.

YoYo: You are On Your Own!

Unless a commenter addresses issues as readability, structure, and syntax, the writer unfortunately, has no way to assess the quality of his work. In a largely uncurated editorial environment, submittals can (and do) range from outstanding to horrifically awful. With few, if any, who offer evaluation having training in Linguistics, Cognition or Neuroscience, any feedback regarding articles, is likely to be highly subjective. There is great variation in the quality of commentary directed at articles submitted in the Internet publications which are widely read. In the best case, where comments are directed at the quality of evidence and reasoning demonstrated by the writer, almost no one addresses issues such as sentence

construction, grammar, and a vocabulary which is employed by the writer. That these issues all have a bearing on the value of the work, appears to have escaped from any consideration being given to them. When Writing Fails It seems safe to say that few writers definitively know when or if their writing is a a well-crafted work or a failure. While many have both fans and detractors the response of both groups is seldom a source for improvement of writing efforts. It will be with great reluctance that it will be declared as such.. There are two distinct elements separating the good from the truly awful. Editors for some publications tend to be quite lenient in a number of areas. Rejection for flawed grammar seldom occurs. (Editors often make their own corrections when such errors are small.) Submittals from those for who English is a second language are often welcomed. Consequently, there is substantial tolerance for far from perfect grammar. Even more importantly, articles are often accepted which contain unsupported conclusions. All too often these conclusions lack verifiable or credibly sourced evidence. the writers objectives can be difficult to determine. Frequent flaws in the structure of the argumentation are readily observed. Publications have a continuing unresolved conflict. On the one hand there is the desire to have a site that welcomes amateurs and professionals alike. At the same time, in order to maintain high ratings, a constant stream of credible, high quality articles is required. I have defined the problem, but have no ready solutions at hand. Each editor has his or her own criteria for determining the acceptability of articles and comments, within the framework set forth by site management. It should be noted that the contents of this article are addressed to all who write, not only those seeking to persuade to the adoption of one viewpoint or another. There is writing to persuade, to explain, and to inform. The content within this article are addressed to all who write for any of these purposes.

When an article fails as good writing, all lose. The author loses by failing to meet the objectives of the article; the reader loses having wasted his time, while potentially losing confidence in the writer and the publication; for those with limited or uncertain reading skills, they frther lose interest in continued reading.

Ignorance
There is a Plethora of recent books written to demonstrate the terrible state of the intellectual health of this nation. Among them are The Dumbest Generation, by Mark Bauerlein, Just How Stupid Are We, by Rick Shenkman, and Idiot America by Charles Pierce. The award winning book, The Shallows, by Nick Carr addresses brain changes resulting from exposure to electronic media. He is known for having also authored, Is Google Making Us Stupid? currently accessible on the Net. Amazon has numerous other books devoted to the question of the degree to which Americans can no longer meet the cognitive demands of the 21st Century. Vocabulary Size As we see below, actual or functional illiteracy is influenced by a number of complex factors. A primary element causing ignorance is a limited vocabulary. One source indicates that by the age of 30-36 months, Children usually speak and understand up to 1,000 words. At 5-6 years old, they have a spoken vocabulary of 2,600 words and understand about 20,000 words. By the time they are 16-18 years old, they have a spoken vocabulary of 12,000-20,000 words and understand about 80,000 works. The adolescent vocabulary is very similar to what the average adult vocabulary, However, some people say that college graduates have a spoken vocabulary of 25,000 or more words, and understand more then 100,000 words. Whether through printed words or those heard, this is how we connect to the world. Vocabulary and Memory What is commonly called memory is an extraordinarily complex system of diverse components and processes. There are three distinct memory processes considered here. They are Sensory information Storage (SIS), also referred to

as Register Memory, Short-term Memory (STM), and Long-Term Memory (LTM).Each differs with respect to function, form of information held, time it ia retained, and information handling capacity.
Sensory Information Storage (SIS)

(SIS) stores sensory images for less then a second after detection by sensory organs. SIS facilitates brain processing a sensory event for longer than the duration of the event itself. That is the basis for perceiving motional continuity in TV and movies. We retain images for some time after they have actually disappeared from our vision.
Short-Term Memory STM

SIS passes data to Short-Term Memory (STM), where it is held for only a short period (a few seconds or minutes). STM stores only the interpretation of the image. If a sentence is spoken, SIS retains the sounds, while STM holds the words formed by these sounds. Characteristic of STM is a severe limitation on its capacity. If asked to recall a series of 10 or 15 words or numbers, typically this can be achieved with only five to nine of them. Even when their importance is emphasized only the first or last words comprising the string can be recalled. When concentrating on managing current information, new data is completely blocked Retrieval of information from STM is direct and immediate because the information never leaves consciousness. Information can be maintained in STM indefinitely by a process of rehearsalrepeating it over and over again. But while rehearsing some items for retention in STM, the addition of new items is blocked.
Long-Term Memory (LTM)

Information in STM is partially processed into Long-Term Memory. Once embedded there, it must be retrieved before it can be used. In contrast to the immediate recall of current experience from STM, retrieval of information from LTM is frequently laborious.

Loss of detail occurs as sensory stimuli are interpreted and passed from SIS into STM and then into LTM, This loss is the basis for the phenomenon of selective perception. It imposes limits on retained information, since lost data can never be retrieved. People can never recall what was actually there in SIS or STM. They can only retrieve their interpretion of what they think is stored in LTM. This recall is substantially affected by pre-existing attitudes, beliefs, and emotional attachments to these perceptions.
Associational Links

In the end what we retrieve from LTM depends on the associational links to the vocabulary we recognize and understand. An example of this is the recognition of the noun, Waterboarding. To recall what it means requires that the reader or listener have either read about it, heard a discussion regarding it on radio or TV, watched a video demonstration of someone being exposed to it, or had someone explain it to him. While it is a term probably familiar many reading this articlce, there will be vast numbers of American adults who have never heard the word, Others have had so little interest in it, they have long forgotten its meaning. This assertion can be tested with adolescent family members, high school, or college students. You will be surprised at how few are familiar with the term.

Illiteracy (Reading is a key element)

What follows is a frightening description of just how limited are the reading skills of the U.S. population: Assessing the reading ability of adult readers is a daunting undertaking. Fortunately, studies by the U.S. Department of Education, administered through the Institute of Education Sciences provide us with a National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). Using only a tiny fraction of the material available, we can present an overview of the reading skills of adult Americans, which clarifies the enormous magnitude and dimensions of the deficit which exists in the use of this essential skill: Prose questions require respondents to perform a prose task (e.g., read an editorial) using one of five types of prose stimulus materials: expository, procedural, persuasive, narrative, and poetry. View a sample prose question.

 Document questions require respondents to perform a document task (e.g., complete a tax form) using one of seven types of document stimulus materials: list, table,map/diagram, form, bill, graph, and other. View a sample document question. Quantitative questions require respondents to identify, describe, or perform an arithmetic operation (addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division) either in prose or document materials, since there are no texts that are unique to quantitative tasks. The majority of NAAL quantitative tasks (39 out of 47) are embedded in document materials. View a sample quantitative question. Hybrid questions require respondents to perform a task using a stimulus material that is both a prose and document structure. If the respondent is required to process the prose segment, the question is coded as a prose task, but if the respondent is required to process both prose and document segments, the question is coded as a hybrid task. Since hybrid tasks account for only 4 out of 152 tasks in 2003, there are too few with which to do any specific analysis. The Graphic below illustrates the totality of adult performance, on all of the questions above described:

Inspection of the figure below readily provides the viewer with an idea of the magnitude of either complete or functional illiteracy on the part of adult Americans. The figure of 30 million, it will be remembered, represents more than

10% of the total adult population residing in this country. When added to the 63 million who have only the most basic reading skills, the surprising thing is that the number of unemployed as high as it is today, still can accommodate the limited abilities of so many severely challenged adults.

So much for adults. What about those going through the schooling process now? Since the 1970s the Department of Education has developed and operated the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) which has developed and administered standardized tests in all disciplines taught in public schools throughout the country. Long before children have any opportunity to take control of, or accept responsibility for mastery of reading skills, their pre-school, kindergarten, and primary grade school experiences have substantially determined their later success in dealing with printed material. It is increasingly recognized that the childs early environment, from birth to the beginning of formal education is the most critical period for establishing his/her reading readiness. Hearing frequent and varied conversations from a wide number of individuals, is an essential developmental component. So too, is being read to, and having the opportunity for experiencing the rich visual environment are essential to brain development, This brain wiring, is a prerequisite to incorporating the formal teaching of reading which later occurs.

Considering all of what you have just read, somewhere between around two thirds (66-88%) are unable to read this work! If they manage to do so, the difficulty they encounter soon convinces them, it is not worth the effort.

Readability
Speed and Comprehension It is important to understand that there is a cleaarf relationship between reading speed and the comprehension of the sentence. Each of the following elements either enhances or limits reading speed. Thus, each contributes the degree to which each sentence is understood. The more rapidly the reader is able to proceed through the sentence, the greater will be his understanding of its meaning.
Vocabulary

One of the most important factors affecting the speed with which the reader can process a sentence is its vocabulary. When familiar with all words in the sentence, time to complete reading is only a function of the number of words comprising it. Using eye movements called saccades, scientists have tracked the length of time our eyes stop or fixate on individual words and linked it with EEG activity, measuring the amount of brain activity or cognitive load, involved in identifying a word. Skilled readers pause on words for as little as 300 milliseconds, a mere fraction of the blink of an eye. However, when the reader is faced with a word or words with which he is unfamiliar, he will come to a screeching halt. But the speed of our eye movements depends entirely on the context surrounding the word. The more specific the context, the more constraint those surroundings put on the individual word, and the fewer meanings were likely to attach to it But, if unable to phonetically decode (pronounce) the word, a reader will be at a complete loss. Inability to

phonetically decode makes it impossible to recall any previous experience with that word. Thus, words likely to be problematic should be avoided. Alternatively, additional information can be inserted to facilitate association of unknown words with known material. An example should suffice to illustrate this latter procedure: Barbara Boxer (Sen D-CA) spoke at the rally today. The information contained within the parentheses immediately identified the individual as a senator from the state of California, who belongs to the Democratic Party. Such an association makes it possible for the reader to identify the individuals name with the position she occupies in Congress. Words which will be unfamiliar to most readers (or those within a particular age or educational group) are called, Rare Words. This means is the frequency with which this word occurs within English language usage is going to be rather low. No writer is expected to investigate the frequency of occurrence of each word he uses. Yet, since awareness that such informational resources are available is important. These resources are used for determining the expected frequency of usage of any word within the English language. For those having interests in such collections (referred to as Corpora), this Corpus of Contemporary American English is an excellent place to begin exploration. To the degree that it is possible to do so, every effort should be made to simplify the vocabulary employed by all writers. Ultimately this will be one of the factors which will bring a wider readership to an author. Sentence Length: Star Wars is perhaps the single movie most likely to have been seen by the readers of this article. There are many memorable characters in each of the series. Among them is Jabba-the-Hut. It is his loathsome obesity which makes him the focus of the viewers attention. However, that is not the kind of attention we want sentences to elicit. Study after study independently demonstrates that, after sentences exceed 22 words in length, comprehension begins to sharply decline. This seems to be

the maximum length the healthy adult brain can efficiently process. Understanding this limitation requires inspection of how memory controls information processing. Here is one study supporting that assertion. Jyoti Sanyals Indlish has an interesting and informative chapter titled Shrink or sink on the length of the sentence. He writes: Based on several studies, press associations in the USA have laid down a readability table. Their survey shows readers find sentences of 8 words or less very easy to read; 11 words, easy; 14 words fairly easy; 17 words standard; 21 words fairly difficult; 25 words difficult and 29 words or more, very difficult. the three reading processes far beyond the act of perceiving printed symbols on a page, translating these symbols into meaningful information involves three complex processes:
Lexical Processing

After viewing, for a word to be recognized, it must be processed in two different areas of the brain. Visual recall of the word (the grapheme), and memory of its sound (the phoneme), must be synchronized. After this recognition occurs, the word must be linked to LTM. Words which are unfamiliar (Rare Words) slow the reading process substantially. In many ways this describes the difference between the competent reader and one who has difficulty with reading. The competent reader is able to recognize almost all words within the sentence and speeds through it. Less skilled readers are slowed by their inability to recognize many words, often painfully plowing through a series of words not understood. A problem during primary elementary education, when the foundation for reading is established, is an argument over how to best teach it. One group insists that the recognition of the grapheme(Whole Word Reading is all that is required.) for the student to achieve mastery reading. Another segment of the educational community insists that students should, pronounce each word, learning to recognize all words by their phonetic construction (Learning by Phonetics).

What both groups fail to recognize is that all elements are essential. As a writer, there are a number of things you can do to insure the most efficient results achieved by readers: Whenever possible use shorter words to reduce the number of syllables required; Be alert to reduce conjunctions such as And, Or, and But. Many occurrences of the article, the, can be removed without affecting sentence meaning. Use of these articles often result in unwanted run-on, or unnecessarily complex sentences; Use the Word Count Tool to check sentence length, highlighting each sentence you wish to verify. (It is found in the Tools menu of Word2003, or always present in Word 2010.)
Syntactic Processing

As readers of the English language, we read Left-to-Right, then moving our eyes from Top-to-Bottom. This is by no means the case for all languages. Arabic and Hebrew are read Right-to-Left. Some Asian languages require Top-to-Bottom reading with the characters consisting of ideographs rather than letters. We tend to anticipate what were most likely to see in the context, so readers of English expect to see the main noun of any sentence before they encounter its main verb. Moreover, readers expect to see the verb relatively early in the sentence, since verbs in English tend to occur soon after the subject, rather than toward the ends of sentences As readers of English, we expect the subject to generally precede the predicate, adjectives to precede nouns, and adverbs to precede verbs. We also expect the rules of grammar to be followed. It is preferred that dependent clauses be positioned to follow the predicate. The second most preferred position is between subject and predicate. Dependent clauses can sometimes be placed at the beginning of the sentence for the sake of variety, but, this should be done infrequently. In numerous EEG studies, reading subjects struggled with syntactic arrangements that made fixing lexical meaning difficult. Readers tend to process subject-verb-object sentences rapidly and efficiently,

projecting that the subject will precede the verb and the object will follow it. In syntactically complex or anomalous sentences, however, reading slows down considerably and EEGs attest to increased activity until the readers detect the syntactic pattern. However, even when longer and more complex sentences unfold according to Englishs default subject-verb-object order, the greater the sentence complexity, the greater the activation detected by EEGs of the cortical areas involved in processing language. It should be noted that the increase in EEG activity reflects an increase in the load placed on the brain. As earlier mentioned, with increasing the load calms increasing fatigue.
Building inferences

Words on the page act as signs, referring to something beyond mere textand not simply the concrete objects or even abstractions they represent but declarations, propositions, and complex arguments about ways of perceiving the world. To move from mere words to useful inferences, the reading process must involve a process which is used to convert nouns and verbs into actions, abstractions, and theories. After determining the role of individual words within a sentence, judgments are made about the their intent and meaning against what is then measured within existing associations in long-term memory. Additional sentences confirm or refute the validity of the determinations made regarding previous sentences. Linking LTM to Familiar Material We all know people who constantly lose things documents, keys, eye glasses. This is an example of visually failing to link the object with something to remind an individual where it was stored. The same principal applies to LTM storage. Once data is stored in LTM, the memory is there forever. In order to access it, however, it must be linked to something that is memorable or familiar. You will link a photo you took at Yellowstone to memories of things you saw or did, when you were there. Conversely, the photo of someone you casually met years ago, may be difficult, if

not impossible for you to identify. This failure results from a lack of linkage between familiar events and the subject of the picture. Readers access long-term memories to verify what they read against what they know of the world. According to some theorists, we build inferences by drawing on our long-term memory to compare the sentences we read to what we know of the world around us, relying on as many as five categories to turn sentences into scenarios: time, space, actor, cause, and intention. Readers assume that sentences that follow each other contain events that also follow each other, what cognitive psychologists identify as, the iconicity assumption, which involves our assuming that sentences represent events in a rough approximation of the way events occurred. The necessity of all linking your writing to familiar events is essential for readers connecting new information to what they already know. I, for example might have no trouble reading words in sentences found in a Molecular Biology textbook. My knowledge of that discipline is close to zero. Thus, even with understanding of individual words, conceptual recall would be limited, at best. It would require many re-readings before the material would begin to stick, or become usable. The Impact of Emotional Language and/or the Use of Expletives The following is to some degree inferential, but consistent with other findings regarding the relationship between emotion and reasoning. The use of cursing appears to divert brain activity from language and reasoning centers to those which generate emotion. This is demonstrated in this Scientific American study: How swearing achieves its physical effects is unclear, but the researchers speculate that brain circuitry linked to emotion is involved. Earlier studies have shown that unlike normal language, which relies on the outer few millimeters in the left hemisphere of the brain, expletives hinge on evolutionarily ancient structures buried deep inside the right half. [Authors emphasis]

One such structure is the amygdala, an almondshaped group of neurons that can trigger a fight-orflight response in which our heart rate climbs and we become less sensitive to pain. Indeed, the students' heart rates rose when they swore, a fact the researchers say suggests that the amygdala was activated To the degree that anyone experiences intense emotion, positive or negative, the individual is distracted from intensive concentration. The amygdala is designed to respond to any stimuli which elicit an emotional response. In the study above, those producing expletives experienced the fight or flight response. It seems a reasonable hypothesis that there would be a negative correlation between the perception of emotional words and speed of reading. Even if this hypothesis is currently unsupported by empirical testing, thid is a factor that writers should consider. Testing Readability None of what has been covered thus far assures effective argumentation. But you will want to know who will be able to read what you have worked so hard to write. Take a look at the readability to this point in the article:

As you can see, an average college freshman should be able to fully manage and comprehend this material. The critical variable is sentence length. No sentence exceeds 23 words, while the average Sentence Length has been held to 19 words. You can download this tool, which is in a Zip file from: http://flesh.sourceforge.net. Before using you will probably also want to read an excellent Wikipedia article found at http://bit.ly/fYZVoy/ At the same time, readability formulae are far from the kind of accurate tools one might wish for in evaluating the readability of a given document. Ultimately, writers in organizations need to focus on readability outcomes, rather than readability formulas. Readability outcomes, as demonstrated by over twenty-five years of studies of reading, include the speed with which readers can read sentences or documents, the efficiency of cortical activity, and the accuracy of recall. Speed almost invariably depends on readers recognition of familiar words, words which typically have a single meaning.. Speed and efficiency in reading also depend on the amount of cortical activation required to process sentences. This neurologic effort not only grows in relation to the length and complexity of sentences but also to the extent to which sentences deviate from the default subject-verb-object order of written English. Readers also process sentences swiftly and efficiently, and display better recall when sentences clearly flag relationships between elements, and when events in the text correspond to the chronological order of the events they represent. When sentences suggest causal relationships reading times decrease. Concurrently, they will increase in accuracy of recall. Increasing the comprehension of readers There are a number of specific tools which writers can use to increase the speed with which readers progress through sentences, and increase the comprehension of the material contained within.

The following material is drawn from a paper by titled Yellowlees Douglas, Associate Professor, Center for Management Communication, titled, How Plain Language Fails to Improve Organizational Communication.
Word choice and determinacy

Studies reveal the reading brain tends to process certain classes of words, types of sentence structure, and even paragraph organization more rapidly and efficiently than others. On the lexical level, investigators discovered that unfamiliar words or words with multiple meanings considerably slowed cognitive processing. Conversely, the greater degree to which individual words are limited to few or single meanings the more efficiently readers process the text by recognizing words more rapidly. Readers dealing with highly familiar words or words constrained in their meaning apparently proceede directly to identifying and fixing the words meaning, eliminating the need for either semantic analysis or retrieval of memories of earlier occurrences of the word.
Subject-verb-object syntax

Written English, with its subject-verb-object order, tends toward sentences that unfurl after the introduction of the main subject and verb, where readers accustomed to this default structure can more easily process embedded phrases and clauses. For this reason, readers of English also tend to struggle to process what linguists call left-branching sentences, sentences that load information before the subject or embed the subject in a series of phrases and clauses. In numerous EEG studies, reading subjects struggled with syntactic arrangements that made the determination of word meaning difficult. Readers tend to process subject-verb-object sentences rapidly and efficiently, predicting that the subject will precede the verb and the object will follow it. In syntactically complex or anomalous sentences, however, reading slows down considerably and EEGs clearly demonstrate increased activity until the readers detect the syntactic pattern. haHowever, even when longer and more complex sentences unfold according to Englishs default subject-verb-object order, the greater the sentence complexity, the greater is the activity in the cortical areas involved in

processing language These results have been attributed to the greater cognitive overhead involved in processing the sentence. This activity requires the activation of more neural tissue, fostering a higher intensity of activation.
Causation and schemas

At the same time cognitive neuroscientists were gaining glimpses into what had been readings black box, cognitive psychologists were discovering sentencelevel features that made for sentences capable of being read more quickly and recalled more accurately than control sentences. While researchers over forty years ago established the importance of causation in human perception, studies have more recently attested to this tendency in readers interpreting sentences in terms of implicit causality (When readers encounter sentences where either overt or implicit causality is present, their reading times speed up, with processing speeded up still further by the presence of verbs that concretely attribute causality to a character in the sentence Further, studies have repeatedly established that readers tend to rely on the iconicity assumption (earlier referred to) in processing sentences. As a result, the more events in the written text obviously deviate in the order of telling from the chronological order of the events they represent, the more difficulty readers experience in comprehending the text. The more clearly the sentences indicate connections between elements in time, space, intention, or causation, the better readers comprehension of the sentences.
Priming, primacy and recency

Similarly, two well-established elements in working and long-term memory can also considerably boost the readability of any document. One important element, priming, involves initially exposing readers to words briefly and then testing their recall of the words in later, more detailed reading. Researchers have discovered an especially significant feature of priming. Studies suggest that priming that readers recall of material exists independent of their comprehension of the text itself.

Surprisingly, given its prevalence in psychology studies of reading for over thirty years, priming has received little attention in studies of reading, cognition, and comprehension (see, for example, Huckin, 1983; Kintsch, 1992; Perfetti, 1999). Actually, the implications of the priming effect for reading are considerable, suggesting that the introduction of key words in a text at the outset of a paragraph will enhance readers comprehension of the entire paragraph. Further, the repetition of key words central to a topic throughout a paragraph might easily also boost readers sense of continuity between sentences, thus making more accessible the schemas necessary for comprehending the meaning of the paragraph (Rumelhart, 1986; Kintsch, 1992; Perfetti, 1999). The second element in long-term and working memory involves primacy and recency. Studies in readers recall of specific words in a text have long established that readers tend to display the most accurate and longest duration recall when readers remember items that occurred at the beginnings and the endings of sentences, lists, or paragraphs (Andre, 1975; Huang, 1986). In fact, Huang (1986) found an increased effect for primacy and recency when readers recalled nouns, rather than verbs or other parts of speech. Here, too, the implications for written communication are considerable, but only a few scholars on writing (Williams, 1990) have incorporated them into principles for effective writing. However, the effects of priming, coupled with those of primacy and recency suggest enhanced recall for the contents at the beginnings of paragraphs, where writers should introduce the main premise for the paragraph, as well as its key terms. The recency effect also suggests that brief summaries, covering the salient points and terms in a paragraph, may work particularly well in assisting readers comprehension and recall of particularly complex paragraphs. Furthermore, the principles of primacy and recency in recall also offer significant implications for the length of bulleted items or lists. As readers tend to retain a strong recall of only the first and last few items, writers should limit the lengths of lists to no more than seven items, as additional items will simply fall beneath readers radar. Finally, writers can

also take advantage of the unstressed areas in sentences and paragraphs to introduce details that they know will elicit negative reactions from their readers (Locker, 1999). For example, in negative letters, managers should situate the most negative elements in the second or later paragraphs, placing the unwelcome message, if possible, in a dependent clause in the middle of the paragraph.
Forumulas vs. Outcomes

Given the complex and comprehensive scope of the data on the cognitive process of reading, we can only wonder that readability formulas, with their simplistic insistence on syllables and sentence length as the sole determinants of readability, hold any currency whatever. Actually, these formulas remain mainstays in books on business writing (Gunning & Kallan, 1994; Fugere, Hardaway & Warshawsky, 2005) and the central weapon in the arsenal of many writing consultants (DuBay, 2004). The reasons for this anomalythe coexistence of formulas that treat reading as an impenetrable black box with a plethora of neuroimaging studies on the reading brainare many, including the tendency of scholars on writing to reproduce the tenets offered in earlier articles and textbooks (Knoblauch & Brannon, 1984), as well as the reluctance and, more commonly, the out-and-out inability of humanities scholars to read and understand clinical data. Ultimately, writers in organizations need to focus on readability outcomes, rather than readability formulas. Readability outcomes, as demonstrated by over twenty-five years of studies of reading, include the speed with which readers can read sentences or documents, the efficiency of cortical activity, and the accuracy of recall. Speed almost invariably depends on readers recognition of familiar words, words which have relatively fixed, determinate meaning. Speed and efficiency in reading also depend on the amount of cortical activation required to process sentences, which grows in relation both to length and complexity of sentences but also to the extent to which sentences deviate

from the default subject-verb-object order of written English. Readers also process sentences swiftly and efficiently, and display better recall when sentences clearly flag relationships between elements, and when events in the text correspond to the chronological order of the events they represent. When events display causal relationships or activate schemas (Kintsch, 1992), reading times decrease, while recall increases in accuracy. By carefully assembling the disparate features of sentences and documents represented in dozens of studies of readers and texts, we can arrive at principles for writing clear and effective prose that reflect the types of words, sentence structures, and paragraph organization that lead to written communication which readers process swiftly and efficiently, and which they also remember with relative ease.

Writing for Optimal Readability

Collectively, this body of research points toward a comprehensive set of guidelines for writing in management communication. Given what we now know about the act of reading, educators, managers, and editors are no longer restricted in their advice to matters of audience and context or to the old Keep It Simple credo, which might have some usefulness during the editing stage but which offers little in the way of tangible directives to employees struggling with a rough draft of a policy statement. Instead, writers can gain guidance on choosing words and structuring their sentences by relying on principles indicated by fifteen years of neurocognitive research on reading: 1. Prefer familiar to less commonly used words and concrete words to abstractions. 2. To aid in readers building inferences, use an actor or tangible object as your grammatical subject and use action, rather than passive, verbs. 3. To aid in readers identifying syntax, place your grammatical subject and verb as close to the beginnings of sentences as possible. If you need to modify a word, try to introduce phrases and clauses after the main verb. 4. Keep subjects and verbs as close together as possible. 5. Limit lists of words or bulleted items to no more than seven items.

6. Use transitions between sentences that make tangible the connections between sentences. 7. Avoid varying your word choice, particularly when using key terms in a paragraph. Instead, use key terms at the outset of sentences when possible, which will aid readers comprehension of the text. 8. Introduce the primary topic in each paragraph at its outset, immediately enabling readers to access schemas that help them make sense of the paragraph 9. Summarize the primary premise of complex paragraphs in a sentence at the end of the paragraph, where readers will recall its contents best and for the longest duration. 10. Place negative information in non-stressed positions in sentences and paragraphs, preferably in dependent clauses in the middle of a paragraph that follows the opening or later paragraphs. Packaging your writing The formatting of any writing can do much to enhance the readability of a document. Font selection can be an important element in achieving this goal. You will note that I have selected Arial, 12 Point with 1.5 line spacing in primary text, with single line spacing in bulleted sections. San Serif text is has been legible, although man prefer serif based fonts such as Times New Roman, or Georgia as having greater aesthetic qualities. Of equal importance is the coloration of the headings which are used to delineate various sections of the article. This is particularly important when you consider the limitation that most readers have on their attention span. This entire article is in excess of 4,000 words. Many are not going to complete reading at a single session it is therefore important that clear lines of demarcation be set out so that the reader can conveniently end and thereafter return to his reading at a later point. Many Internet publications require that pictures be stored as files. Copying and pasting screen scrapes is a far more rapid and convenient process than storing each chart, graph, or photo as a file. It is far simpler to use a tool such as the free screen extraction program, WinSnap. Results can be directly pasted to a Word Processing program. The same is true when embedding videos. These can simply be pasted as links.

Considering all of the above, when permitted by a target publication, articles are best submitted as links to web pages stored in one of the many free cloud sites such as Dropbox, Box.net, or Files Anywhere. Unless copyright is transferred to a publication, the author can provide easy access to all who may be interested in reading his work.

Summary
In this article, I have attempted to disclose some of the hidden factors that affect the credibility and readability of what we write, I have disclosed some barriers to effective writing often not considered by those contributing to various publications. Writers of Opinion Articles always have as an objective influencing the beliefs of readers. Long sentences, discussion of unfamiliar concepts, grammatical errors, and emotional language all reduce the effectiveness of writing. Poor writing inevitably fails to achieve the objective of the writer, diminished his credibility, and that of the publication he writes for.