Evaluating readability

Readability formulas have drawbacks when used with persons who are not fluent in English. Most such formulas depend upon the assumptions that longer words and longer sentences are more difficult than those which are not. The author asserts that these assumptions do not hold, and that there are other factors which contribute to relative difficulty when dealing with nonfluent readers. Vocabulary, sentence structure, text organization, and presentation, factors affecting readability that can be controlled by the writer, are discussed.