Reports on an investigation of the effect of syntax on the comprehension of written English by Thai college students who have studied English as a foreign language. (HOD)

Argues that readability formulas accurately predict how easily a passage will be understood by considering sentence length and word difficulty. Claims that the misuse of readability formulas as writing guides is responsible for much of the criticism. Challenges the critics to come up with something better. (RS)

Raises doubts about the validity of readability formulas. (RB)

Presents a three-stage process for teaching the logical relationships that exist in paragraphs to aid high school students in differentiating main ideas from subordinate statements. (MKM)

Suggests using visual cues such as boldface type, indenting, and color coding to help students identify important words in sentences and relationships between sentences. (MKM)