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© 2017 Water Research Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.© 2017 Water Research Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this presentation may be copied, reproduced, or otherwise utilized without permission.

Throwing precaution out the window:how to talk about contaminants,

risk and the unknown22 June 2017

© 2017 Water Research Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Related WRF Projects/Resources

• (4323) Consumer Perceptions and Attitudes Toward EDCs and PPCPs in Drinking Water—Research and guidance on

understanding consumer perceptions to improve future communications

• (4387) Development of a Water Utility Primer on EDCs/PPCPs for Public Outreach—Comprehensive overview —Primer for non-technical

audiences

http://www.waterrf.org/Pages/Projects.aspx?PID=4323








WRF Focus Area on CECs Risk Communication

Objectives:1. Provide core messages and strategies for water utilities2. Facilitate dialogue with a broad range of stakeholders(4457) Core Messages for Chromium, Medicines and Personal Care Products, NDMA, and VOCs• Context animation on drinking water and CECs• Technical briefs and “thinking about” pieces on Cr(VI),

VOCs, NDMA, and medicines

(4463) National Dialogue on Contaminants of Emerging Concern and Public Health• Recommendations to foster communication and collaboration among water sector,

researchers, regulatory agencies and public health groups• White papers summarizing different perspectives and related work







© 2017 Water Research Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.© 2017 Water Research Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Dr Gabriella RundbladReader in Applied Linguistics

King’s College London

(4551) Terminology for Improved Communication Regarding CECs


Participating Utilities/Authorities

5


Research Team MembersGabriella Rundblad

Chris TangEric Olofson

Aga TytusCarrie OlofsonPer Haugsöen

6


Water Research Foundation

• #4551 - Terminology for Improved Communication Regarding CECs

• #4323 - Consumer Perceptions and Attitudes towards EDCs and PPCPs in Drinking Water


#4323 - recapMedia reports impact worry about exposure to contaminantsWomen are in a sense “vulnerable” consumers in that they are concerned about water quality, do not seek out information in proportion to this concern, yet they change their drinking water behaviour.Consumers want technical details but not technical language; There is a big gap between lay language and water professional languageWords/phrases with strong negative associations: endocrine disruptors, low levelsThe phrase no regulations is the most worrisome, because regulation has strong positive associations with safety


#4551 - aimAim: • develop communication tools for key

terminology relevant to CECs and risk

Purpose:• to ensure consumers can easily 1) find

and 2) understand tailored water quality information


Text analysis

Data from participating utilities• telephone• website• social media

Data from• surveys• semantic tasks

10

Activities

© 2017 Water Research Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.11

MAIN CONSUMER SURVEY


Demographics12

Frequency Percent Census %

Gender

Female 192 48.4 50.8

Male 205 51.6 49.2

Age

Under 20 3 0.8 27.0

20-29 139 35.0 13.8

30-39 129 32.5 13.0

40-49 59 14.9 14.1

50-59 47 11.8 13.6

60 or over 20 5.0 18.5



Ethnic Group

White 322 81.1 72.4

Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 2 0.5 0.2

Asian 37 9.3 4.8

Black or African American 23 5.8 12.6

Two or more races 9 2.3 2.9

American Indian/Alaskan Native 2 0.5 0.9

Prefer not to say 2 0.5 N/AEnglish is a native language

Yes 392 98.7 N/ANo 5 1.3 N/A


14


Highest level of education completed

9th-12th grade 3 0.8 8.8

High school graduate (or equivalent) 100 25.2 32.8

College or associate’s degree 117 29.5 28.5

Bachelor’s degree 140 35.3 19.6

Graduate or professional degree 37 9.3 10.4

Employment

not in paid employment 82 20.7 N/A

in paid employment (84.4% vs 74.0%) 315 79.3 N/A

Property owner

does own the property they live in 193 48.6 66.2*

does not own the property they live in

204 51.4 33.8*


Predictor variables• Standard demographics

—Gender—Age—Paid employment—Property ownership

• Variables generated from the survey—“Factiness” (see next slide)


Facts are… Gender Age Employ Propertyexcitinguneventful hard to remember 0.031easy to remember 0.019useful 0.005 0.008uselessinteresting boringunnecessary important easy to understand 0.005

hard to understand

We constructed a “factiness” variable based on the participants’ answer to two of the fact questions (0=no to both; 1=yes to one; 2=yes to both) – male bias towards factiness

That

fem

ale

cons

umer

s did

not

find

it e

asy

to

unde

rsta

nd a

nd re

mem

ber f

acts

per

haps

ex

plai

ns w

hy th

ey a

re n

ot m

ore

likel

y to

seek

ou

t inf

orm

atio

n


Seeking out vs Using information

17

Ordinal regression revealed that participants with a high factiness score were more likely to seek out and use information (both: p<0.001).

A similar prediction was found for older participants (seek: p<0.01; use: p<0.05)


I don't think about the quality of my tap water

I think about the quality of my tap water

I worry about the quality of my tap water

I am concerned about the quality of my tap water

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

14.6%

51.0%

17.2% 17.2%

20.5%

54.6%

13.2%11.7%

Female

Male

Ordinal regression confirms that women and participants with a high factiness score were more likely to worry/be concerned about tap water quality (p<0.05, p<0.01)

Thinking about water quality


FINDINGINFORMATION

19


REAL CONTACT

20


Utility dataPHONE CALL STATISTICS

% of Customers who call re: Quality

% of Callers are Women

0.20% 　0.02%0.37% 　0.00% 64.4%0.01% 　0.01% 46.7%0.01% 61.7%0.00% 53.8%

Average 0.08% 56.6%Note: all values reflect monthly averagesUnderlined values are calls to emergency line, no breakdown of purpose. Some—perhaps most—will have been about supply disruption.

WEBSITE STATISTICS% of Customers

11.9%1.7%4.7%2.2%

12.5%4.9%1.2%

14.6%Average 6.7%Note: all values reflect monthly averages


Clear gender differences for phone calls and social media use

FACEBOOK AND TWITTER STATISTICSFacebook

Likes% of Likes are Women

Twitter Followers

% Followers are Women

3,308 58% 1,761 36%1,392 58%1,243 　 2,650 　1,788 　 8,821 　1,349 47% 2,124 29%552 65% 491 34%332 56% 679 36%241 49% 1,097 41%

Average 1,276 55.5% 2,518 35%


SURVEY CONTACT

23


n %

Never 287 75.5

Once a year 52 13.7

A few times each year 36 9.5

Several times each year 5 1.3

Excluding private wells

Property owners contacted utilities more often than non-owners (p<0.01)

How often do you/your household contact your water utility each year?


Answer: NEVER• Hypothetical contact for real consumers• Hypothetical contact for private wells

The rest of the answers• Real contact

• We asked: Who? How? What about?


People who really did contact their water utility

Who? n %

Female 41 44.1

Male 52 55.9

How? n %visited them in person 11 11.8

called them 74 79.6

emailed them 4 4.3

used their website 4 4.3

used their Facebook 0 0.0

used their Twitter 0 0.0

Men more likely to contact the water utility – despite water utilities recording calls as being from women


What motivated people who really did contact their water utility?

n %

general information about the provision of tap water 16 17.2

general information about the cost of tap water 32 34.4

general information about the quality of tap water 17 18.3

other general information 14 15.1

specific information about the provision of tap water in your home 18 19.4

specific information about the cost of tap water (i.e. incorrect charge) 29 31.2

specific information about the quality of tap water (i.e. water is cloudy) 15 16.1

other specific question 12 12.9


HYPOTHETICAL:Who and how would you contact the utility?

How? n %visit them in person 7 2.4

call them 174 60.6

email them 23 8.0

look at their website 82 28.6

look at their Facebook 1 0.3

look at their Twitter 0 0.0

Who? n %

Female 132 46.0

Male 155 54.0

Men again (hypothetically)


HYPOTHETICAL: What could motivate you to contact the water

utility?n %

general information about the provision of tap water 36 12.5

general information about the cost of tap water 82 28.6

general information about the quality of tap water 140 48.8

other general information 29 10.1

specific information about the provision of tap water in your home 105 36.6

specific information about the cost of tap water (i.e. incorrect charge) 134 46.7

specific information about the quality of tap water (i.e. water is cloudy) 144 50.2

other specific question 19 6.6


CONNECTING

30


IMAGINE that you went online to search for information about tap water quality.

How likely are you to use a search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo?

● 71.3% answered 5=“very likely” and 20.4% selected 4

● Ordinal regression: Those with a high factiness score were more likely to use a search engine (p<0.05)


Top 20? WATER WORD + NAME OF LOCATION

tap water drinking water

environment

NO NO NOYES YES NOYES YES YESYES YES NOYES YES YESYES NO NONO NO NOYES YES YESYES YES YESYES YES YES

Surprisingly, when we searched for e.g. tap water and the name of the city where the water utility was located, we found that several utilities didn’t make the top 20 list on Google.


How do (lay) people search?

• The most popular internet search engine queries consist of words that are non-technical and in common usage (Spink et al, 2001)


Augmentation of US text corpus

US outreach WRF 4551Advocacy 24,984Utilities 20,329Water Organisations 29,722Agencies and Regulators 31,653

WRF 4323

WRF 4551

US media 255,865 311,605US outreach 47,950 106,688


Media Advocacy Water Utilities Water Orgs Agenciesdrugs chemicals compounds pharmaceuticals contaminants

pharmaceuticals pharmaceuticals pharmaceuticals compounds pharmaceuticals

chemicals drugs contaminants contaminants PPCPs

atrazine endocrine emerging chemicals chemicals

contaminants triclosan medications CECs emerging

compounds atrazine drugs EDCs compounds

medications contaminants personal (care products) PPCPs drugs

pesticides BPA PPCPs medications endocrine

hormones hormones EDCs emerging personal (care products)

antibiotics antibiotics chemicals substances substances

Discipline differences

Based on our text analysis


drugs fish

pharmaceuticals frogs

contaminants infants

hormones birth defects

pesticides reproductive

antibiotics intersex

Atrazine

13 words to use in searches


Top 20?Advanced Google search

Three types of combinations:

CEC WORD+WATER WORD+LOC pesticides + tap water + Idaho

CEC WORD+WORD+LOCpesticides + fish + Idaho

CEC WORD+WORD+WATER WORD+LOC pesticides + fish + tap water + Idaho

Total of 351 Possible hits

Top 20

11

50

115

11

103

15

10

20

54

89


Internal search engines: 2 Methods Method 1• Manually search for each of

the 13 words

Method 2• Use Google to search a

specified site (i.e. we used the search string “site:WATERUTILITYNAME” plus one of the 13 words

Most utilities scored below 13, which was the max, and for many Google worked better than their internal search engine.

Internal Google Site

7 10

9 9

12 12

5 8

12 12

N/A 8

13 13

8 12

13 12

13 13


Why?• Most utility websites are constructed

for human viewers• Google is not a human!

• Google treats “has X” and has no X” the same!

• Many utilities take a “conservative” approach


How to improve• Website strategies for water

professionals (or, what you see is not what Google sees…)

Tools include:• Meta tags• Alt attribute for images• Tailoring documents for pre-views


ALTERNATIVES

41


• 59% Android 39% iOS

• iOS well balanced for gender, but Android slightly more men

• 191 million internet users in the US• 1/3 of internet traffic from a mobile device (62% men;

59% women)

Mobile internet


Apps• iOS app is more popular and has

higher traffic than Android app

• iOS: 73.39% women, 26.61% men; pretty equal distribution among age

• Android: 43.38% women, 56.52% men; highly skewed towards age group 35-54

43


THEMES

44


Contaminants Amounts Risk Investigating, Discovering, Knowing

Water Types and the EnvironmentContamination Channels and Proper DisposalImpact Standards and Regulation

45

Themes


TRUST

46


First and Best sourceWhen you want to know more about the quality of your tap water, which source…

...would you CONTACT/

LOOK AT FIRST?

...is the BEST SOURCE?

n % n %neighbor 19 4.8% 12 3.0%

friend 16 4.0% 5 1.3%search engine 5 1.3% 3 0.8%

other water 1 0.3% 5 1.3%local government 27 6.8% 30 7.6%

political party 1 0.3% 0 0.0%water utility/company 235 59.2% 195 49.1%

health professional 7 1.8% 25 6.3%environmental organization 57 14.4% 92 23.2%

advocacy group 5 1.3% 11 2.8%news media 17 4.3% 15 3.8%social media 7 1.8% 4 1.0%

Fem

ale

cons

umer

s rat

e wa

ter u

tiliti

es h

ighe

r


Information sources

TRUSTEDRELIABLE/

KNOWLEDGABLE

EASILY ACCESSIBLE

n % n % n %neighbor 51 12.8% 24 6.0% 145 36.5%local government 112 28.2% 122 30.7% 71 17.9%political party 4 1.0% 6 1.5% 6 1.5%water utility/company 243 61.2% 287 72.3% 256 64.5%health professional 165 41.6% 176 44.3% 54 13.6%environmental organization 235 59.2% 249 62.7% 109 27.5%advocacy group 65 16.4% 66 16.6% 44 11.1%news media 92 23.2% 73 18.4% 146 36.8%social media 20 5.0% 15 3.8% 135 34.0%friend/family 58 14.6% 31 7.8% 149 37.5%other water 7 1.8% 5 1.3% n/a n/a

48


Trusted• Women find water utilities more trustworthy than do men

(p<0.05)

• People with a high score on factiness report greater trust in water utilities than those with a low factiness score (p<0.01)

Female Male Total65.6% 57.1% 243

Low Medium High Total54.9% 64.0% 70.7% 243


Reliable/Knowledgeable• Women find water utilities more reliable than do men

(p<0.05)Female Male Total76.6% 68.3% 287


KNOWING IS TRUSTING

51


Water Utilities, Water Organizations and Agencies focus on quantitative and qualitative knowledge.“We don’t know what chemicals and drugs to remove because we’re just learning what’s in our rivers and streams.”Knowledge is categorised as known or unknown/not known.

The same binary categorisation is true for lay sources.Media and Advocacy tend to highlight the transient nature of findings, e.g. emerging, preliminary. They also typically infer and suggest contaminants are harmful of by referring to knowledge of their harmfulness in non-water contexts.

52

Scientific knowledge in texts


What factors influence people’s trust in a report that the water is safe?

In the case of a report that a constituent is in the water, what influences trust in a statement that the water is safe to drink?Three possibilities (in addition to our usual predictors):• Knowledge of constituent: constituent is either

known to be harmful or it is not known whether or not it is harmful

• Source: is the report from a government, university, water utility, news media, or environmental advocacy source

• Both: various interactions


It’s ok to drink• IMAGINE that you read a report or statement that a

constituent has been found in tap water. Professionals DO NOT KNOW if this constituent is or is not harmful to humans. But it is only present in tap water in such small amounts that it is perfectly ok to drink the tap water just as it is.

• IMAGINE that you read a report or statement that a constituent has been found in tap water. Professionals KNOW that this constituent is harmful to humans. But it is only present in tap water in such small amounts that it is perfectly ok to drink the tap water just as it is.

• Would you trust and believe the report/statement?


Known or Unknown

media utility government env advocacy university


Men versus Women

media utility government env advocacy university


… a constituent that is present in tap water is

known to be harmful to humans so you need to boil the water before drinking it.

• Older participants were more likely to trust media reports, water utility reports, and university reports

• Those who do not own their property were more likely to trust media reports and water utility reports

Would you trust and believe the report/statement? (N=389)

SOURCE YESUtility 79.9%University 79.6%Government 78.2%Media 70.2%Env. Advocacy 69.6%


Re-representing scientific knowledge about health risks

• Avoid knowledge claims using unknown/not known, and adverbs like still and yet.

• Statements including the phrase no evidence in relation to a risk context, can just as easily suggest a lack of knowledge as a lack of risk, so should be avoided.

• Conceptualise the acquisition of scientific knowledge and the current level of understanding as aspects of a cumulative and ongoing process of knowledge acquisition.


CONTAMINANTS

59


VERY SMALLSURVEY

60


Water professionals

Male (N=71) Female (N=48)n % n %

Australia 23 76.7 7 23.3United States 20 43.5 26 56.5United Kingdom 28 65.1 15 34.9

General Public Male (N=46) Female (N=80)n % n %

Australia 14 46.7 16 53.3United States 21 38.9 33 61.1United Kingdom 11 26.2 31 73.8

Who and where from?


Water professionals Mean Min Max

Australia 45.43 27 59United States 46.26 26 70United Kingdom 37.67 21 62

General Public Mean Min Maxfemale 46.20 25 83Male 42.13 22 94Total 35.76 20 61

Age


The myth that is H2O

Tonicity: normal tap water is slightly hypertonic, while pure H2O is hypotonic

Response Professionals (N=119) General public (N=126)

n % n %No 38 31.9 21 16.7Maybe 33 27.7 29 23.0Yes 48 40.3 76 60.3

Can humans drink pure water, i.e. water that is purely made up of the molecule H20, without getting ill?


• Participants were required to select one of six options for 18 statements. —origin of contamination (5)—type of contaminant (3)—detection of contamination (2)—aesthetics (3)—harmfulness (3)—treatment (2)

64

Statements


General public in all countries

a contaminants is• something that is not meant to be in the

water• that ideally should not be present in tap water• that ideally should be removed from tap

water.

Often, contaminants cannot be seen by the naked eye, and do not make the water look or smell bad.


Water professionalsUS sample:• something that ideally should be removed from tap water. Most contaminants cannot be seen by the naked eye. Commonly, contaminants end up in the water accidentally.

UK sample:• something that is not meant to be in the water• that ideally should be removed from tap water• that ended up in the water accidentally. Most contaminants cannot be seen by the naked eye.

Australian sample:• something that is not meant to be in the water,• that ended up in the water accidentally• that ideally should be removed from tap water. Most contaminants cannot be seen by the naked eye. Often, contaminants are chemicals, and contaminants commonly have the potential to be harmful to humans.


Pure waterThose who felt that pure water can be drunk were more likely to say that natural elements and things that were not were in the water to start with are contaminants.


Survey effect• Water professionals: 73.9% of participants felt

that the meaning of the word “contaminant” was clear, but at the end of the survey that number significantly dropped to 58.8% (Z=-3.279, p<0.01).

• General public: 80.2% of participants felt that the meaning of the word “contaminant” was clear, but at the end of the survey that number significantly dropped to 59.5% (Z=-4.771, p<0.001).


SEMANTIC TASK

69


• In the very small water professional survey, we asked participants suggest alternative terms (real or novel); suggestions from PAC and participating utilities; and the team

• Final selection of 20 words – these were compared in word pairs

• 20 words = 190 word pairs• 7 point scale, very similar - not at all

similar• 10 comprehension questions• Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) 70

“stuff”


Contaminant map


How to pick the best word?

• Terminology guidance for water professionals (or, what you say is not what people hear…)


AMOUNTS

73


How understandable and helpful is this information?

1=not understandable/helpful at all; 10=very understandable/helpful

Risk expression Mode Mean

Median

Min Max

0.0003 milligrams per liter 7 5.96 6 1 100.3 micrograms per liter 8 6.36 7 1 100.3 parts per billion 8 6.07 6 1 10over 84 glasses 10 8.41 9 1 10over 5 gallons 10 8.19 9 1 10over 37 baby bottles 10 7.19 8 1 10over 1 gallon 10 7.71 8 1 10


Preference: grams or glasses?

• Men rate milli/micrograms as more understandable than do women

• Those with a high factiness score preferred adult glasses/gallons and infant bottles/gallons more than those with a lower factiness score

milligrams micrograms ppb adult adult baby infant glasses gallons bottles gallons


If you had to choose only one…

76

…which one would you choose? n %

number of milligrams per liter 21 5.3

number of micrograms per liter 14 3.5

number of parts per billion 22 5.5

number of glasses for an adult 237 59.7

number of gallons for an adult 87 21.9

number of baby bottles for an infant 7 1.8

number of gallons for an infant 9 2.3

TRUE FOR EVERYONE!


Semantic task: 30 amount words

• 74 participants (40 male, 34 female)

GenderAge

Mean Standard Deviation

Minimum Maximum

female 40.0 12.2male 42.6 14.3Total 39.6 13.4 21 75


minuscu

le

microsc

opic

trace

undete

ctable tin

y

negligi

bleminu

te

insign

ificant

irrelev

antsm

all low

margina

l

infinit

esimal

modest

stand

ard

averag

e

modera

tenor

mal

unmeas

urable

health

ysiz

able

substa

ntial

large big

exten

sive

profou

nd

catast

rophic vas

thug

e

massive

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100Variable size


Is big big enough?• a word that very clearly

means large and nothing more - huge

• a medium word - big, large, vast, extensive

• emphasis is much more on the effect than the size - massive, substantial, profound

79

Vaguehealthyinsignificantmarginalmicroscopicmodestsizableundetectablecatastrophicundetectableunmeasurableinfinitesimal

Words that do not fit


Is small small enough?• minute, tiny, minuscule, irrelevant, trace -

these words means very small and the focus is on size, not effect. We recommend minute for CECs.

• The words low and small are actually the largest little words and therefore not good enough to use for very small amounts, so avoid these for CECs and for contaminants that are below the MCL threshold. Do note that sticking very or extremely in front of these words does not solve the problem.


RISK

81


• Word selection: synonym and antonym dictionaries; text analysis; suggestions from PAC and participating utilities

• Comparison in word pairs• 30 words = 435 word pairs• 7 point scale, very similar - not at all similar• Two versions

– first: randomized and counterbalanced– second: “mirror” survey

• 10 comprehension questions82

Semantic task: 30 risk words


Positive vs negative words


*questionable*uncertain*unknown*dangerous*hazardous*riskyunwarrantedcomplexcomplicatedcriticalseriousprecautionaryunfounded

beneficialharmlesshealthynatural*safe*clearunderstandable*provenreasonableregulated*reliablestandardacceptableapproved*familiargoodsound

We get a 3D solution.

But the second and third dimensions have no good fits.

So the solution is in fact binary: negative versus positive.

The asterisk shows which words fit this binary model best.

precautionary does not fit at all!

Binary


READABILITY

85


EPA texts• We tested the readability of three EPA texts

—Text 1 reporting on atrazine in drinking water—Text 2 a press releases about health advisories—Text 3 reporting on cyanobacteria and

cyanotoxins• We conducted quantitative and qualitative

analysis on the three texts • All three texts exhibited conspicuously

complex language, with a direct impact on readability and understanding


Quantitative assessment• Text 3 is exceptionally hard to digest or even incomprehensible to

many readersText1Atrazine

Text 2 Press release

Text 3Cyanotoxin

Gunning Fog Readability Scorescore of 12 = US high school senior;score of 8 is desirable

13.9 15.0 17.8

Flesch reading-ease test90-100 = 11 year old 38.4 24.6 2.8

Vocabulary complexity(AntWordProfiler)

Level 1 – high freq 71.0% 62.7% 57.4%

Level 2 – freq 6.3% 7.3% 3.2%

Level 3 – common 9.6% 9.4% 6.1%

Specialised 13.1% 20.6% 33.3%

Unidentified words (Wmatrix) 4.4% 4.3% 16.0%


Qualitative assessment—Grammatically complex, “dense” language —Heavy use of jargon

• These linguistic features were linked to three tendencies:—A tendency to “pack in” lots of information into

the fewest number of words (typical for scientific writing intended for a specialist audience)

—A circular use of jargon heavy and/or grammatically complex language to disambiguate already obscure terms

—The use of complex language to avoid over-simplified or misleading risk assessments


BEFOREHealth advisories are not regulations, but provide technical guidance to help state and local officials and managers of water systems protect public health. They identify concentrations of contaminants above which adverse health effects are possible and provide testing methods and treatment techniques. The health advisory values for algal toxins recommend 0.3 micrograms per liter for microcystin and 0.7 micrograms per liter for microcystin and 0.7 micrograms per liter for cylindrospermopsin as levels not to be exceeded in drinking water for children younger than school age. AFTERHealth advisories are not regulations, but guidelines. State and local officials and managers of water systems use these guidelines to protect public health. In the guidelines, EPA scientists state the limit at which contaminants can become harmful and advise local water technicians about the best ways of testing for contaminants and treating water. In the guidelines, the EPA currently recommends limits of...


Atrazine


Recalculating readability Atrazine revised

Atrazine orig short

AtrazineEPA

Gunning Fog Readability Scorescore of 12 = US high school senior;score of 8 is desirable

12.54 14.53 13.9

Flesch reading-ease test90-100 = 11 year old 44.4 44.4 38.4

Vocabulary complexity(AntWordProfiler)

Level 1 – high freq 75.3% 65.1% 71.0%

Level 2 – freq 2.7% 7.0% 6.3%

Level 3 – common 4.1% 4.7% 9.6%

Specialised 17.8% 23.3% 13.1%

When making texts shorter, there is a real danger of making it denser and harder to understand.


Guidance Documents


Q&A

© 2017 Water Research Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.© 2017 Water Research Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Comments or questions, please contact:[email protected]@kcl.ac.uk

For more information visit:www.waterrf.org

Thank you

mailto:[email protected]

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