Twenty-four adults participated in an experiment to determine the difficulty of conditional sentences of the kinds frequently found in the instructions in government forms. The stimulus materials were 128 sentence frames of the form, "If you are X, press button Y," where X was replaced by sixteen different coordinate structures. These…

Forty adults served as subjects in a study of the comprehensibility of instructions conditioned by multicategory compounds, such as "If you are male, or both married and not employed, go to question 3." The stimulus materials were 96 sentence frames of the form, "If you are X, press (button) Y," in which "X" was…

A study was conducted (1) to discover whether using standardized headings on warranties would increase or decrease people's speed and accuracy in understanding the terms of warranties and (2) to determine what effect headings would have on people's attitudes toward warranties. Subjects were 48 adult consumers who read groups of four warranties for…

To determine if people who wrote legal documents could read such documents with understanding and rewrite them to be understandable to the general public, eight experienced government writers were asked to rewrite a portion of a government regulation for a general audience. The writers--four lawyers and four nonlawyers--were audio recorded as they…

Misleading headings in documents, which make it hard for readers to find what they need, are common in many types of documents. A review of research on the importance of cues in the reading process suggests that heading miscues might seriously impair understanding. Three experiments were conducted to discover how headings cue or miscue adult…

Defining "functional documents" as those such as regulations, contracts, and policies that people must read in order to act, this paper posits the need for a revision principle by which writers can structure such documents to meet readers' needs. The first part of the paper describes a research project that uncovered some needs of…

Noting that many young children are excluded from child care settings because of their behavior and that early emotional and behavioral problems are often ignored or misidentified, this issue brief highlights emerging strategies to promote the emotional wellness of young children and their families, including those most at risk. The brief further…

An alternative to the standard "rule based" account of a child's acquisition of the past tense in English is presented in this paper. While the rule based assumption suggests that children typically pass through a three-phase acquisition process in which they first learn past tense by rote, then learn the past tense rule and overregularize, and…

The rapid growth of the need for technical translations in recent years has led specialists to utilize computer technology to improve the efficiency and quality of translation. The two approaches considered were automatic translation and terminology banks. Since the results of fully automatic translation were considered unsatisfactory by various…

This report describes work-based programs that companies and affiliated unions have organized in lifelong learning and career development for their employees. The programs offer a variety of approaches in such areas as program content, target populations, methods for attracting participation, learning-related technologies, financing, and…

Research projects on higher education are listed in this inventory within the appropriate subsections of 8 main subject headings: students, faculty, administrators, structures, functions, governance, graduate and professional education, and higher education in the marketplace - supply and demand, money and manpower. The report supplements efforts…

The purpose of this guide is to provide background and focus material for political action regarding several areas of concern related to children and their families: unemployment and the working parent, supports for family economic stability, health and family services, and the environment and the working parent. Each chapter presents brief…

This compilation consists of a collection of reports on models and studies in the area of manpower management and planning. Part One contains a doctoral dissertation, "The Application of Computer-Assisted Multi-Level Manpower Planning Models in the Federal Government" by R. J. Niehaus, which provides a comprehensive summary of the U.S.…

This report by the Curriculum Task Force represents its considered conclusion about general reform (K-12) of the social studies curriculum in the United States. It presents a balanced and comprehensive curriculum program adapted to the needs of present day society and suggests direction for the future. Part 1 discusses the recommended social…