This article presents a novel approach for readability assessment through sorting. A comparator that judges the relative readability between two texts is generated through machine learning, and a given set of texts is sorted by this comparator. Our proposal is advantageous because it solves the problem of a lack of training data, because the construction of the comparator only requires training...

We investigate the problem of readability assessment using a range of lexical and syntactic features and study their impact on predicting the grade level of texts. As empirical basis, we combined two web-based text sources, Weekly Reader and BBC Bitesize, targeting different age groups, to cover a broad range of school grades. On the conceptual side, we explore the use of lexical and syntactic ...

OBJECTIVE ClinicalTrials.gov serves critical functions of disseminating trial information to the public and helping the trials recruit participants. This study assessed the readability of trial descriptions at ClinicalTrials.gov using multiple quantitative measures. MATERIALS AND METHODS The analysis included all 165,988 trials registered at ClinicalTrials.gov as of April 30, 2014. To obtain ...

This study examined the readability of the AANA Journal, quantifying the effect of peer review on case and research reports published from 1992 to 1994. Gunning and Flesch index-based computer analysis, as well as human comparative analysis, was undertaken. Computer and human assessment of readability revealed improvement as papers evolved from submitted to published versions; however, at publi...

While the automatic analysis of the readability of texts has a long history, the use of readability assessment for text simplification has received only little attention so far. In this paper, we explore readability models for identifying differences in the reading levels of simplified and unsimplified versions of sentences. Our experiments show that a relative ranking is preferable to an absol...

Accurate readability assessment of health related materials is a critical first step in producing easily understandable consumer health information resources and personal health records. Existing general readability formulas may not always be appropriate for the medical/consumer health domain. We developed a new health-specific readability pilot measure, based on the differences in semantic and...

BACKGROUND A substantial amount of consumer health-related information is available on the Internet. Studies suggest that consumer comprehension may be compromised if content exceeds a 7th-grade reading level, which is the average American reading level identified by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS). OBJECTIVE To determine the readability of Internet-based co...