The final inference of comprehension (lay public as audience)

Explaining science and engineering to the lay public requires skillful prediction of the lay reader´s inferences-ideas created by the reader using ideas gathered from the text (text inferences) or from individual experience (logical inferences). The authors describe the inference process, discuss how science and technical writers use it to increase comprehensibility of their writing, and examine several texts to illustrate how inference structures in a text can ease access to science and technology for the nonexpert or lay reader. It is thus suggested that comprehension of science writing is a matter of the degree of comprehension. The fact that a lay reader infers comprehension of a highly complex technical subject may be the final inference-and an important one when lay people are empowered to act on their inferred knowledge.<>