"PepperPatch" Clinical TrialPlain-Language Consent Form Published
The article includes a before-and-after ICF for a fictional clinical trial of a remedy for hair loss called the "PepperPatch." The purpose of an ICF is to ensure that the subjects understand the nature of the trial, the risks involved, and the rights of the subjects. The law requires the doctor to orally explain the clinical trial and to offer a written explanation—the ICF—which the subjects must read, understand, and sign. The authors' main objective in doing the plain-language makeover was to maximize the reader's understanding of the experiment. In doing so, they emphasized:
You can read the article, "Informed Consent Form Makeover" and the before-and-after treatments of the ICF at: http://www.firstclinical.com/journal/2006/0605_Makeover.pdf The Journal of Clinical Research Best Practices is an electronically distributed forum for sharing material of practical use in clinical research. With over 32,000 subscribers, it publishes "material that is too controversial, time-sensitive or non-traditional for other publications." Readers of the article are invited to send comments and suggestions to Editor Goldfarb at: ngoldfarb@firstclinical.com. Egocentric EmailFailing to Connect with the ReaderA study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology reported that a lack of writing skills greatly reduces the effectiveness of the most widely used communication channel in the world—email. The study, "Egocentrism Over E-Mail: Can We Communicate as Well as We Think?" found email writers consistently misjudged the ability of their readers to find their humor funny or to distinguish sarcasm from seriousness. The study included five experiments that showed that email writers tend to believe that they communicate better than they do. The studies suggested that this overconfidence is the result of not being able to evaluate the perspective of one's readers. According to business-writing specialists, badly written emails are costing businesses millions of dollars in mistakes, damaged relationships, telephone calls to correct misunderstandings, and the time taken to read and write unnecessary messages. Email has enabled people to communicate badly in great volume. You can read the study in Acrobat format at For directions in improving the quality of email, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/australia/smallbusiness/themes/email/article4.mspx http://www.stanton.dtcc.edu/stanton/cs/rfc1855.html http://www.business-letter-writing.com/ Readability CalculationsEd Frantz' Program Wins Again
Ed began his company in 1979 for developing educational software for schools and colleges. Currently, his products include Readability Calculations and the Vocabulary Assessor, which can identify words in texts which are beyond a targeted grade level. You can get more information at his Web site above or by calling Ed during business hours at his Dallas location: 214 553 0105. Testing the ProductTo test the relative validity of the formulas in Readability Calculations, we used the 53 normed passages in the book The Qualitative Assessment of Text Difficulty by Jeanne S. Chall and her colleagues (Brookline, 1996). The results listed here are the correlations of the general-purpose formulas (Grades 1 to 17) with all 53 of the normed passages:
The following two formulas were designed for children's texts. We tested them on passages only of the first four grades.
Dealing with CorrelationsIn much of research, investigators look for correlations instead of causes. A correlation coefficient (r = ) is a descriptive statistic that can go from +1.00 to 0.0 or from 0.0 to -1.00. A correlation of 1.00 means a perfect one-to-one correspondence between two items going through a series of changes. Any correlation above .50 or -.50 is considered significant, that is, better than chance. In testing readability formulas, investigators compare a number of passages of different grade levels with the formula scores for them. The resulting correlation shows how well the formula scores correspond to changes in text difficulty. For example, if a formula gives a 9th-grade score for a 7th-grade text, and at other grade levels the difference is in the same direction and by a corresponding amount, the correlation could still be quite high. The Standard Error is another indication of reliability. A Standard Error of 2.0 means we can expect less than a 2-grade error in 68% of the scores, or a less than a 4-grade error in 95% of the scores. The correlations for the formulas shown above are quite good and compare well with the validity of other common psychological measures such as reading tests. Caution: Don't write to the formula! When using the formulas to develop texts, just shortening words and sentences to get a better score will not work. You also have to adjust other features like purpose, organization, and approach to match the reading level of the audience.
Plain Language in the NewsAcademic
language not clear: Crimes
of academic language: SEC
seeks to simplify reports: International
plain-language auditing project: Removing
jargon from parental advice: Professor
banishes archaic legal waffle: Wading
through school jargon: Combining
privacy notices with consent forms:
Foreign accents at call centers a problem for Americans: Office
jargon hides inefficiency:
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