Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing - Volume 39, Issue 2, 2017

Abstract Comprehensible Language and Effective Communication II This special issue presents an overview of the outcomes of the research programme called Comprehensible Language and Effective Communication (Dutch National Science Foundation, 2011-2016). This programme aimed to stimulate fundamental and applied research on comprehensible and effective communication. A core characteristic of the pro Read More

Abstract At risk? Me? A report on two studies into how people give meaning to information in online health checks. This article reports on two qualitative user studies that were designed to understand how people interpret and give meaning to information from online health checks. The object of both studies was the Dutch PreventionConsult, consisting of a short cardiometabolic risk calculator and an elaborate survey m Read More

Abstract On the road to a healthier lifestyle: Developing narrative health interventions for truck drivers Compared to other professional groups, truck drivers are a low SES group with a relatively unhealthy lifestyle and relatively poor health outcomes. From an analysis of current health interventions aimed at truck drivers, it appears that designers assume that their unhealthy behavior is caused by a lack of motivation to Read More

Abstract Health education about alcohol and tobacco use for low literate adolescents: the role of connectives This paper first overviews the results of eight experiments that examined the effects of school health communication about alcohol and tobacco on low educated adolescents. Overall, it was found that there was a short term knowledge increase but only among adolescents with less knowledge. Also, the attitude became Read More

Abstract Comprehension of pension communication: effects of legal obligations, literacy and revisions In a project on Financial Communication, research has been done in the domains of pensions, mortgages and debt collection. This paper presents the results of three studies, concentrating on the pension domain. In the first study we reflect upon mandated disclosure. We demonstrate that the legal context for pension com Read More

Abstract Voting Advice via Internet: Political literacy in a digital information society The central aim in our NWO ‘Comprehensible Language’ project (2012-2016) was to investigate to what extent Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) intentionally and unintentionally affect political knowledge and political attitudes. In this article, we present an overview of four years of research. First, we investigated reasons for use of VAAs, disting Read More

Abstract Evidence-based advice for comprehensible writing, a daydream? Organizations and writers striving to use plain language could benefit from evidence-based pieces of writing advice. At present, recommendations for producing comprehensible texts are often based on experience with the target group and/or common-sense logic, while previous effect studies have shown that applying such recommendations does n Read More

Abstract Simplifying educational text: how is it done, and does it help? The Dutch canon offers 50 short texts that teach Dutch students about important parts of Dutch culture and history. Those texts are provided at three levels of complexity. The first part of this paper presents an automatic analysis of the linguistic features that have been modified in simplifying the texts. The versions differ most in word complexity Read More