Ethics of imperfect measures

Computers make it easy to tabulate text style variables [1]. In our laboratory we have gone farther, creating an automated system that uses those tabulations to make detailed editorial comments [2]. Relying on advice from writing experts and psychological research, our “Writers´ Workbench” calculates several readability measures, comments on misspelled words and awkward phrases and sentences, measures text abstract-ness, and compares these properties of a text to other texts. Writers find these aids useful, and there are obvious management and educational implications. Before putting these tools together, however, we considered how such aids might be used and misused. Below I review these considerations in light of readability formulas.