The Measurement of Redundancy and Its Effects

A study was conducted to determine if,increasing'the. ' redundancy of sectionsim scientific articles where typical' readers became bored or confused would have a desirable effect on other readers. Undergraduate journalism students aPPled R. F. Carter's /'signalled stopping technique to two different ience articles by indicating points where they stopped reading bec useof confusion, boredom, o ecial interest. Both articles were tien rewritten, giving attenti to the feedback provided by the s, dents' stopping behavior. W. Taylo ' clozp procedure--a measure of he redundancy of language patterns confirmed that the revised aiticl s were more redundaqt:thab the original versions, 4thou'gh'both pre approxiebtely the same length. Similar*.qualified st'pdents then applied the same stopping procedure to the revised articles. Results indicated that changes. in redundancy made in response to the feedback of the firtt group significantly decreased reader confusion. However, reader interest and scores on an pbjective comprehension/recall test were-not increased-significantly. 'The5egresults'suggested that feedback from typical re'adegs can help science writers to communicate Scientifi.c information to selected audiences more'effectively'. (Copies 'of the original and revised essays used in the study are appended.) (JL) . d 3 ***;******************************* *********************************-** Reproductions supplied by EDRS, are the best that can be made from the original document. i********************************************************************** 4. 44 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 4._Thes document has been reproduced as recerved from the person or organization ongtnatmg it t I Minor changes have been madesto improve reproduchori duality Points of view or opinions stated in the docu ment do not necessanty represent official ?WE position or policy ' THE MEASUREMENT OF REDUNDANCY AND ITS EFFECTS 5 IN SCIENCE COMMUNICATION 'David Mi.cklos and Walton Bishop College ofJournaliarn University of Maryland College Park, Maryland 20742 "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS 42112Ar ,MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY David Micklos Walton Bishop TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES . INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)" 4 Paper presented to the Science Writers Educators Group, Association for Education in tiournalisin Annual Convention, Athens; Ohio; duly, 1982. .