Writing Styles of Abstracts in Occupational Therapy Journals

Abstract

The readability grades of abstracts randomly selected from the American Journal of Occupational Therapy, the Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, the British Journal of Occupational Therapy, and the Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy were studied through the program Style of the Unix operating system (computer). The formulae for readability grades used were the Kincaid formula, the automated readability index, the Coleman-Liau formula, and the Flesch formula. One-way analysis of variance was found to be significant (p<0.05) between the British and Australian journals in all four formulae. Based on samples of abstracts, the results indicated that the British journal is the easiest and the Australian journal is the most difficult to read of all four journals. A Pearson correlation matrix revealed a significant positive and negative relationship between some of the 12 variables in each journal.