[Wikipedia-l] A Three Way Split

Wed Sep 18 20:56:29 UTC 2002

Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> I was watching ABC news and saw a believable statistic, that 40% of the
>> adult population can't read at the 5th grade level.  Not much we can 
>> do for
>> them. 
>
Some of us have known this sad statistic for a long time. Although in 
the UK I think it' s 20%. That is still alarmingly high.

 > There was a situation a few years ago in the United States where the 
Internal Revenue Service decided that all of its tax guides should be 
written to be readable by people with a 10th grade reading level.

Yes, they have done that in the UK too, for most government forms such 
as tax and Social Security.
The problem is that they are largely incomprehensible to people with an 
adult reading age. The sentence end up winding too much and tripping 
over themselves. To break them up they shove in full stops and "ands". 
They eliminate all complex clauses, and end up being very ambiguous.
Lately, utility companies have started simplifying too: my electricity 
bill now just says "PLEASE PAY £46.40", with no explanation of how many 
units I've used, or how much is tax, until I turn over and read small print.

>
> Asking that the lead paragraph of an article reasonably and succinctly 
> defines the subject matter may be as much as we can hope for. 

I agree. The opening paragraphs should establish context (already a 
wikipedia guideline), establish which discipline the article falls 
under, and give links to less specialized pages: "In [[mathematics]], a 
'''group''' .... " etc.

Clear writing should always be a goal, but that should not result in 
over-simplified writing.