Moulthrop and Kaplan question statistics

<2> Halio relied on the Kincaid readability scale incorporated in the Writer's Workbench analysis program to evaluate the importance of the variations in writing she found. The scores suggest that the Macintosh samples were readable at just below an eighth grade level and the IBM samples at slightly above the twelfth grade level. Readability tests rely on quantifiable stylistic measures, such as sentence length and clause type. Halio associates longer and more complex sentences with better writing, but her interpretation may be faulty. In an analysis of topical structure in writing, Witte found texts with less complexity and shorter sentences easier to read and understand. Distrusting quantitative methods, many composition specialists prefer evaluations by human raters who can take into account content, purpose, audience, and other features of the rhetorical situation. Even if we accept these stylistic analyses as meaningful, they do not imply, as Halio seems to assume, that Macintosh users are less "mature" than IBM users. Readability scores do not indicate the level at which a writer reads but the level at which (in the prose being analyzed) he or she has written. A good writer's choice of level is contingent on subject matter, audience, and purpose. Although it takes some effort, even a professor of English can produce copy readable at an eighth grade level. Readers might not judge this prose weaker than more complex, erudite writing.(257-258)