Correct English: Reality or Myth? by Marnell Geoffrey

Author:Marnell, Geoffrey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abelard Consulting
Published: 2015-12-23T00:00:00+00:00

Part 2: How can size matter?

In the first part of this paper, I dissected the claim by Robert Horn that research by American psychologist George Miller on the limitations of short-term memory shows that we should present information to readers in chunks of no more than 7 ± 2 sub-chunks. To repeat Horn’s prescription to technical writers:

“Writers … should apply this [7 ± 2] limit at every level of a written document … By chunking information the writer improves the reader’s comprehension … since readers can at best retain no more than 5 to 9 pieces of information in short-term memory …”12

We found that Miller’s research on the limitations of short-term memory does not support Horn’s claim, and Miller himself was quoted as saying so.

The fact that Horn erred in basing his chunking principle on the limited capacity of our short-term memory does not on its own disprove that some chunking limit is necessary for comprehension. Perhaps, then, the chunking principle at the heart of Information Mapping is still appropriate (even if the work of Miller cannot be adduced in support of it).

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that there is some chunking limit. To what chunks in a document might it sensibly apply? Horn contends that it should apply to every structural component in a document: blocks, maps, sections and chapters.

First let’s note that there is nothing in Horn’s claim that “chunking information … improves the reader’s comprehension”13 to suggest that he is using the word comprehension other than in its common-or-garden dictionary meaning:

“comprehension noun 1. the act or fact of comprehending”

“comprehend verb (t) 1. to understand the meaning or nature of”14

Thus Horn’s claim is that chunking improves a reader’s ability to understand what they are reading. Analysed this way should make it blindingly clear that the relationship between chunking and comprehension-as-understanding is a tenuous one indeed. If such a relationship exists at all, then it plainly cannot apply to all types of writing. A novel, for instance, is largely unchunked. It will have paragraphs (that is, blocks) and it may have chapters. But it won’t have maps and very few novels have sections. And of the chunks a novel does have, no limit is adhered to by the author. Does this lack of rigorous chunking in the form required by Information Mapping mean that we do not understand what we read in novels? To retort that chunking would improve comprehension is to imply that without chunking every reader must necessarily fail to understand some parts of a novel. Or, to put it another way, no-one has ever fully understood a novel. That’s a tough claim to support.

Comprehension is often measured by a reader’s ability to recall the salient facts in what they have read. Perhaps what Information Mapping has in mind in claiming that “in chunking information the writer improves the reader’s comprehension” is that chunking improves a reader’s ability to correctly recall what they have read. The bigger the chunk they have to read, the more difficult it is for a reader to recall the salient facts in the chunk.

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