HLTH 4380 Week 3 Readability Revision Brief Example

Seven Sentences From a County Disposal Page, Revised for the Adult Child at the Cabinet: Every Cut Logged, One Regulatory Term Kept With a Gloss and a Grade Level Reported With Its Caveat

Student Name

Walden University

HLTH 4380: Strategies for Health Communication and Wellness

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Seven Sentences From a County Disposal Page, Revised for the Adult Child at the Cabinet: Every Cut Logged, One Regulatory Term Kept With a Gloss and a Grade Level Reported With Its Caveat

Purpose

This brief revises the disposal section of a composite county health department web page for the reader named in Week 1: Teresa, an adult child clearing her father's medicine cabinet before his move to assisted living. Readability work can remove a fact along with a syllable, so every change is logged with its reason, and the facts in the revision are checked against the FDA guidance the county page was based on (U.S. Food and Drug Administration [FDA], 2024a, 2024b). The original and the revision appear side by side in Table 1, with numbers keyed to the log below.

Original and Revision

Table 1

The County Page's Disposal Section, Original and Revised, Sentence by Sentence

Maple County is a composite; the original was drafted for this brief to resemble many local government pages.

Change Log

1. "Residents are encouraged to utilize" became "Take." The original buried the action inside a statement about residents. The Federal Plain Language Guidelines advise addressing the reader directly and using the imperative for instructions (Plain Language Action and Information Network, 2011).

2. "Authorized collection receptacles" became "drop box," the words on most kiosks and the words Teresa would type into a search.

3. "Pharmaceutical products, including those classified as controlled substances" became "medicines" plus a second sentence, "This includes old pain pills." The regulatory class means nothing to this reader; the example tells her that her father's leftover opioid can go in.

4. "Participating retail pharmacy locations" became "drugstores."

5. Sentence 3 was split into three. It ran to 49 words and held a condition, an exception, a method and a container. Each now has its own sentence, in the order Teresa would do them.

6. "Admixture of the medication with an undesirable substance" became "mix them with." The nouns "admixture" and "placement" were turned back into the verbs hiding inside them.

7. "Removal or obliteration of all personally identifiable information" became "black out the name." The FDA's own wording is to scratch out personal information on the label (FDA, 2024b); "black out" names the same act with a household tool.

8. "Sharps" became "needles." The term is standard in clinics and unfamiliar at home.

9. "For additional information, contact the Environmental Health Division" became a question and a short instruction, with the division's name shortened to the words on the switchboard menu.

The Refusal

One term was kept: "FDA flush list." No plain phrase holds its meaning, and Teresa may need to search for it. Instead of replacing it, the revision glosses it in the next sentence, using the FDA's reason for the list: these medicines can cause death from one dose if taken by the wrong person (FDA, 2024a). The gloss adds a fact the original omitted, and that fact is the reason the exception exists.

What Was Checked

Each revised sentence was read against the FDA pages. The trash method keeps the FDA steps of mixing, sealing and blacking out the label; the FDA also advises against crushing tablets or capsules before mixing (FDA, 2024b), a detail the county original omitted and the revision does not yet carry, flagged here for the fact sheet in Week 4.

Grade Level, With Its Caveat

Using the Flesch-Kincaid grade-level formula, which turns words per sentence and syllables per word into a school grade (Kincaid et al., 1975), the original section scores at about grade 16 and the revision at about grade 4, by the syllable count used for this brief. Different software counts syllables differently and can disagree by a grade or more. The formula also measures only length; it cannot tell whether a short sentence is clear or whether a fact was dropped. The log, not the score, is the main evidence. The CDC Clear Communication Index treats plain language as one item among many, alongside a clear main message and a stated action (Baur & Prue, 2014).

References

Baur, C., & Prue, C. (2014). The CDC Clear Communication Index is a new evidence-based tool to prepare and review health information. Health Promotion Practice, 15(5), 629-637. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839914538969

Kincaid, J. P., Fishburne, R. P., Jr., Rogers, R. L., & Chissom, B. S. (1975). Derivation of new readability formulas (Automated Readability Index, Fog Count and Flesch Reading Ease Formula) for Navy enlisted personnel (Research Branch Report 8-75). Naval Technical Training Command. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/istlibrary/56/

Plain Language Action and Information Network. (2011). Federal plain language guidelines. https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/

U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2024a). Drug disposal: FDA's flush list for certain medicines. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/disposal-unused-medicines-what-you-should-know/drug-disposal-fdas-flush-list-certain-medicines

U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2024b). Drug disposal: Dispose "non-flush list" medicine in trash. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/disposal-unused-medicines-what-you-should-know/drug-disposal-dispose-non-flush-list-medicine-trash