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Abstract readability as a factor in information systems

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  • Gladys B. Dronberger
  • Gerald T. Kowitz

Abstract

Documents may be accessed by increasingly efficient retrieval of abstracts, but information will not be transferred unless the abstracts are read. It is suggested that the measurement of the readability of abstracts can provide an assessment of one phase of an information system: the system/user interface. Controlled reading levels for abstracts could result in more rapid processing of abstracts and a wider use of the information system. It was hypothesized that the use of readability principles in guidelines for abstracting would result in abstracts of lower reading levels than the source documents upon which they were based. Abstracts and their source documents were selected randomly from the information system supported by the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC); readability scores were calculated using the Flesch Reading Ease formula. Comparisons among reading levels were made using analysis of variance for correlated data and Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference (HSD) test for post hoc comparisons. Results indicated that the reading level of abstracts was significantly higher than the reading level of source documents, but not higher than the reading ability of the intended audience. It was concluded that readability measurement provides one useful techinque for hte evaluation of abstracts.

Suggested Citation

  • Gladys B. Dronberger & Gerald T. Kowitz, 1975. "Abstract readability as a factor in information systems," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 26(2), pages 108-111, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jamest:v:26:y:1975:i:2:p:108-111
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.4630260206
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    Cited by:

    1. Edoardo Magnone, 2014. "A novel graphical representation of sentence complexity: the description and its application," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 1301-1329, February.
    2. James Hartley & James W. Pennebaker & Claire Fox, 2003. "Abstracts, introductions and discussions: How far do they differ in style?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 57(3), pages 389-398, July.
    3. Tan Jin & Huiqiong Duan & Xiaofei Lu & Jing Ni & Kai Guo, 2021. "Do research articles with more readable abstracts receive higher online attention? Evidence from Science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(10), pages 8471-8490, October.

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