Who knows how to write simply?
August 31, 2010 9:57 PM Subscribe
I'm looking for research on low-literacy writing, how people read and remember different kinds of materials, what kind of materials are most readable to the most people, etc. Names of academic journals or even academic specialties I should be looking at would be helpful. Info on this topic for general audiences (and written accessibly!) are also welcome, if they are based on research. (Much of what I've found so far is based on conjecture, which I already have a ton of).
Hi, it sounds like you're looking for evidence-based ways to write for audiences with limited literacy skills. There has been a ton of research done on this within the field of health literacy, although from your question it sounds like you're interested in more general topics. And, it sounds like you're not that interested in educational or instructional approaches to literacy - just the writing side?
You might want to pose your question to the folks on one of the National Institute for Literacy's listservs. I'm on their Health Literacy discussion list and there is a ton of discussion and research going on on exactly what you're asking - what's the best way to explain how to manage your diabetes, so that someone with limited literacy skills can read, remember, and use that information? Etc. I'm sure many of the studies done by that group could be applied to non-health information.
If the materials you're developing are for the web, you might also want to add user-centered design to your research set (I'm happy to see you already have 'plain language' as a tag here). Here's a great overview of what research shows users with limited literacy skills miss as they navigate a web page (again, health-content specific, but probably applicable to lots of other kinds of info).
Full disclosure: I work for a health communications firm with 2 of the editors of that document.
posted by pants at 4:20 AM on September 1, 2010
You might want to pose your question to the folks on one of the National Institute for Literacy's listservs. I'm on their Health Literacy discussion list and there is a ton of discussion and research going on on exactly what you're asking - what's the best way to explain how to manage your diabetes, so that someone with limited literacy skills can read, remember, and use that information? Etc. I'm sure many of the studies done by that group could be applied to non-health information.
If the materials you're developing are for the web, you might also want to add user-centered design to your research set (I'm happy to see you already have 'plain language' as a tag here). Here's a great overview of what research shows users with limited literacy skills miss as they navigate a web page (again, health-content specific, but probably applicable to lots of other kinds of info).
Full disclosure: I work for a health communications firm with 2 of the editors of that document.
posted by pants at 4:20 AM on September 1, 2010
Search the ERIC database - it's full of research in the field of education, a huge chunk of which has to do with literacy.
posted by Miko at 6:25 AM on September 1, 2010
posted by Miko at 6:25 AM on September 1, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
There's also the large bibliographic database at www.comppile.org, which tracks the last 70 years of scholarship associated with the fields of college composition studies and rhetoric, and would include research on the topics you describe. (However, you'll want to read over the instructions page for searching comppile, since it can be a bit counter intuitive at first.)
posted by 5Q7 at 3:48 AM on September 1, 2010