KARL%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (10/31/83)
From: Karl A. Nyberg <KARL @ MIT-MC> I am interested in programs that people might know of that give word distributions, sentence lengths, etc., so as to gauge the complexity of articles. I'd also like to know if anyone could point me to any models that specify that complexity in terms of these sorts of measurements. Let me know if any programs you might know of are particular to any text formatter, programming language, or operating system. Thanks. -- Karl -- [Such capabilities are included in recent versions of the Unix operating system. -- KIL]
LIN%MIT-ML@sri-unix.UUCP (11/02/83)
From: Herb Lin <LIN @ MIT-ML> You might want to take a look at some of the stuff by R. Flesch who is the primary exponent of a system that takes word and sentence and paragraph lengths and turns it into grade-equivalent reading scores. It's somewhat controversial. [E.g., The Art of Readable Writing. Or, "A New Readability Index", J. of Applied Psychology, 1948, 32, 221-233. References to other authors are also given in Cherry and Vesterman's writeup of the STYLE and DICTION systems included in Berkeley Unix. -- KIL]