The Sigma Delta Chi Awards are presented annually by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) (formerly Sigma Delta Chi) for excellence in journalism . The SPJ states the purpose of the award is to promote "the free flow of information vital to a well-informed citizenry ".
112-683: The awards program began in 1939. The SPJ first awarded the Distinguished Service Awards. These awards later became the Sigma Delta Chi Awards. Prior to the creation of the awards program, the society first chose six individuals for their contributions to journalism in 1932. A fee is collected from each entry. Since 2007, the fee for members of the Society of Professional Journalists was $ 60, $ 100 for non-members. All entries must be accompanied by three copies of
224-426: A centralised, well-organised, and effective government, largely a result of the reforms of Henry VII and Henry VIII , as well as Elizabeth's harsh punishments for any dissenters. Economically, the country began to benefit greatly from the new era of trans-Atlantic trade and persistent theft of Spanish and Portuguese treasures, most notably as a result of Francis Drake's circumnavigation . The term Elizabethan era
336-652: A clear and readable style, Bryson found that it was rare. He wrote that such language is the result of a "... discipline and artistry that few people who have ideas will take the trouble to achieve... If simple language were easy, many of our problems would have been solved long ago." Bryson helped set up the Readability Laboratory at the college. Two of his students were Irving Lorge and Rudolf Flesch . In 1934, Ralph Ojemann investigated adult reading skills, factors that most directly affect reading ease, and causes of each level of difficulty. He did not invent
448-524: A dominant genius or a formal structure for research (the following century had both Sir Isaac Newton and the Royal Society ), the Elizabethan era nonetheless saw significant scientific progress. The astronomers Thomas Digges and Thomas Harriot made important contributions; William Gilbert published his seminal study of magnetism, De Magnete, in 1600. Substantial advancements were made in
560-496: A failure of the wheat crop, but did do so in France. England was exposed to new foods (such as the potato imported from South America), and developed new tastes during the era. The more prosperous enjoyed a wide variety of food and drink, including exotic new drinks such as tea, coffee, and chocolate. French and Italian chefs appeared in the country houses and palaces bringing new standards of food preparation and taste. For example,
672-502: A fashion statement. Mansions were often designed to a symmetrical plan; "E" and "H" shapes were popular. The population of London increased from 100,000 to 200,000 between the death of Mary Tudor in 1558 and the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. Inflation was rapid and the wealth gap was wide. Poor men, women, and children begged in the cities, as the children only earned sixpence a week. With the growth of industry, many landlords decided to use their land for manufacturing purposes, displacing
784-626: A few localities were funds available to provide support as well as the necessary education scholarship. Boys from wealthy families were taught at home by a private tutor. When Henry VIII shut the monasteries he closed their schools. He refounded many former monastic schools—they are known as "King's schools" and are found all over England. During the reign of Edward VI many free grammar schools were set up to take in non-fee paying students. There were two universities in Tudor England: Oxford and Cambridge . Some boys went to university at
896-576: A formula based on physical states and mental states. However, she found this was no better than word familiarity and sentence length in showing reading ease. Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female personification of Great Britain)
1008-427: A formula, but a method for assessing the difficulty of materials for parent education . He was the first to assess the validity of this method by using 16 magazine passages tested on actual readers. He evaluated 14 measurable and three reported factors that affect reading ease. Ojemann emphasized the reported features, such as whether the text was coherent or unduly abstract. He used his 16 passages to compare and judge
1120-450: A garden could trade with their neighbors to obtain vegetables and fruits at low cost. Fruits and vegetables were used in desserts such as pastries, tarts, cakes, crystallized fruit, and syrup. At the rich end of the scale the manor houses and palaces were awash with large, elaborately prepared meals, usually for many people and often accompanied by entertainment. The upper classes often celebrated religious festivals, weddings, alliances and
1232-462: A great deal of bread and fish. Every class had a taste for beer and rum. The diet in England during the Elizabethan era depended largely on social class . Bread was a staple of the Elizabethan diet, and people of different statuses ate bread of different qualities. The upper classes ate fine white bread called manchet , while the poor ate coarse bread made of barley or rye . The poorer among
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#17327978684321344-591: A number of years, Elizabeth refrained from persecuting Catholics because she was against Catholicism, not her Catholic subjects if they made no trouble. In 1570, Pope Pius V declared Elizabeth a heretic who was not the legitimate queen and that her subjects no longer owed her obedience. The pope sent Jesuits and seminarians to secretly evangelize and support Catholics. After several plots to overthrow her, Catholic clergy were mostly considered to be traitors, and were pursued aggressively in England. Often priests were tortured or executed after capture unless they cooperated with
1456-595: A plot to overthrow the Queen and restore the Catholic Church in England. Another major conspiracy was the Babington Plot – the event which most directly led to Mary's execution, the discovery of which involved a double agent , Gilbert Gifford , acting under the direction of Francis Walsingham , the Queen's highly effective spy master. The Essex Rebellion of 1601 has a dramatic element, as just before
1568-588: A policy of tolerating Protestantism with the Edict of Nantes . In part because of this, but also because the English had been expelled from their last outposts on the continent by Spain's tercios , the centuries-long Anglo-French Wars were largely suspended for most of Elizabeth's reign. The one great rival was Habsburg Spain , with whom England clashed both in Europe and the Americas in skirmishes that exploded into
1680-436: A powerful navy. On balance, it can be said that Elizabeth provided the country with a long period of general if not total peace and generally increased prosperity due in large part to stealing from Spanish treasure ships, raiding settlements with low defenses, and selling African slaves. Having inherited a virtually bankrupt state from previous reigns, her frugal policies restored fiscal responsibility. Her fiscal restraint cleared
1792-616: A project sponsored by the U.S. Navy, the Reading Ease formula was recalculated to give a grade-level score. The new formula is now called the Flesch–Kincaid grade-level formula. The Linsear Write Raygor readability estimate was developed in 1977. In 1978, John Bormuth of the University of Chicago looked at reading ease using the new Cloze deletion test developed by Wilson Taylor. His work supported earlier research including
1904-424: A readability formula to predict the difficulty of adult reading material. Investigators in many fields began using it to improve communications. One of the variables it used was personal references, such as names and personal pronouns. Another variable was affixes . In 1947, Donald Murphy of Wallace's Farmer used a split-run edition to study the effects of making text easier to read. He found that reducing from
2016-436: A replacement for the litters and carts of an earlier transportation mode. Coaches quickly became as fashionable as sports cars in a later century; social critics, especially Puritan commentators, noted the "diverse great ladies" who rode "up and down the countryside" in their new coaches. Historians since the 1960s have explored many facets of the social history, covering every class of the population. Although home to only
2128-421: A simple hole in the roof. Mansions had many chimneys for the many fireplaces required to keep the vast rooms warm. These fires were also the only way of cooking food. Wealthy Tudor homes needed many rooms, where a large number of guests and servants could be accommodated, fed and entertained. Wealth was demonstrated by the extensive use of glass. Windows became the main feature of Tudor mansions, and were often
2240-540: A small part of the population the Tudor municipalities were overcrowded and unhygienic. Most towns were unpaved with poor public sanitation. There were no sewers or drains, and rubbish was simply abandoned in the street. Animals such as rats thrived in these conditions. In larger towns and cities, such as London, common diseases arising from lack of sanitation included smallpox , measles , malaria , typhus , diphtheria , scarlet fever , and chickenpox . Outbreaks of
2352-681: A somewhat higher social level families ate an enormous variety of meats, who could choose among venison , beef , mutton , veal , pork , lamb, fowl, salmon , eel , and shellfish . The holiday goose was a special treat. Rich spices were used by the wealthier people to offset the smells of old salt-preserved meat. Many rural folk and some townspeople tended a small garden which produced vegetables such as asparagus, cucumbers, spinach, lettuce, beans, cabbage, turnips, radishes, carrots, leeks, and peas, as well as medicinal and flavoring herbs. Some grew their own apricots, grapes, berries, apples, pears, plums, strawberries, currants, and cherries. Families without
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#17327978684322464-680: A text. Text leveling is commonly used to rank the reading ease of texts in areas where reading difficulties are easy to identify, such as books for young children. At higher levels, ranking reading ease becomes more difficult, as individual difficulties become harder to identify. This has led to better ways to assess reading ease. In the 1920s, the scientific movement in education looked for tests to measure students' achievement to aid in curriculum development. Teachers and educators had long known that, to improve reading skill, readers—especially beginning readers—need reading material that closely matches their ability. University-based psychologists did much of
2576-402: A variety of settings and regions. The test used a number of passages from newspapers , magazines, and books—as well as a standard reading test. They found a mean grade score of 7.81 (eighth month of the seventh grade ). About one-third read at the 2nd to 6th- grade level , one-third at the 7th to 12th-grade level, and one-third at the 13th–17th grade level. The authors emphasized that one-half of
2688-552: A voyage to find a northern route to the Spice Islands of Asia; this began the search for the North West Passage . Cabot sailed in 1497 and reached Newfoundland . He led another voyage to the Americas the following year, but nothing was heard of him or his ships again. In 1562 Elizabeth sent privateers Hawkins and Drake to seize booty from Spanish and Portuguese ships off the coast of West Africa . When
2800-507: Is code, news information, or storytelling, every writer has a target audience that they have to adjust their readability levels to. The term "readability" is inherently broad and can become confusing when examining all of the possible definitions. Readability is a concept that involves audience, content, quality, legibility, and can even involve the formatting and design structure of any given text. Different definitions of readability exist from various sources. The definition fluctuates based on
2912-666: Is issued and judges may withhold an award if they deem no entry worthy. Entries are judged on readability , effectiveness of interpretation, accuracy and completeness , enterprise, clarity and style , resourcefulness of the reporter in overcoming obstacles, interest and adherence to the SPJ Code of Ethics. The 48 categories are assigned according to publication type or the type of work in journalism. There are awards for newspapers and wire services , magazines , arts and graphics, radio , television , newsletters , research and online reporting . Readability Readability
3024-548: Is often recommended for use in healthcare. The Golub Syntactic Density Score was developed by Lester Golub in 1974. In 1973, a study commissioned by the US military of the reading skills required for different military jobs produced the FORCAST formula. Unlike most other formulas, it uses only a vocabulary element, making it useful for texts without complete sentences. The formula satisfied requirements that it would be: In 1975, in
3136-477: Is read. This was called reading persistence, depth, or perseverance He also found that people will read less of long articles than of short ones, for example, a story nine paragraphs long will lose 3 out of 10 readers by the fifth paragraph. In contrast, a shorter story will lose only 2 out of 10 readers. A study in 1947 by Melvin Lostutter showed that newspapers were generally written at a level five years above
3248-564: Is the ease with which a reader can understand a written text . The concept exists in both natural language and programming languages though in different forms. In natural language , the readability of text depends on its content (the complexity of its vocabulary and syntax ) and its presentation (such as typographic aspects that affect legibility , like font size , line height , character spacing , and line length ). In programming , things such as programmer comments , choice of loop structure, and choice of names can determine
3360-690: The 1559 Book of Common Prayer which effectively reinstated the 1552 Book of Common Prayer with modifications which made clear that the Church of England believed in the (spiritual) Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Communion but without a definition how in favor of leaving this a mystery, and she had the Black Rubric removed from the Articles of Faith: this had allowed kneeling to receive communion without implying that by doing so it meant
3472-692: The Anglo-Spanish War of 1585–1604 . An attempt by Philip II of Spain to invade England with the Spanish Armada in 1588 was famously defeated. In turn England launched an equally unsuccessful expedition to Spain with the Drake–Norris Expedition of 1589 . Three further Spanish Armadas also failed in 1596 , 1597 and 1602 . The war ended with the Treaty of London the year following Elizabeth's death. England during this period had
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3584-609: The Anglo-Spanish Wars intensified after 1585, Elizabeth approved further raids against Spanish ports in the Americas and against shipping returning to Europe with treasure. Meanwhile, the influential writers Richard Hakluyt and John Dee were beginning to press for the establishment of England's own overseas empire. Spain was well established in the Americas, while Portugal, in union with Spain from 1580, had an ambitious global empire in Africa, Asia and South America. France
3696-653: The Black Death pandemic occurred in 1498, 1535, 1543, 1563, 1589 and 1603. The reason for the speedy spread of the disease was the increase of rats infected by fleas carrying the disease. Child mortality was low in comparison with earlier and later periods, at about 150 or fewer deaths per 1000 babies. By age 15 a person could expect 40–50 more years of life. The great majority were tenant farmers who lived in small villages. Their homes were, as in earlier centuries, thatched huts with one or two rooms, although later on during this period, roofs were also tiled. Furniture
3808-670: The Bye Plot of 1603, two Catholic priests planned to kidnap King James and hold him in the Tower of London until he agreed to be more tolerant towards Catholics. Most dramatic was the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament. It was discovered in time with eight conspirators executed, including Guy Fawkes , who became the iconic evil traitor in English lore. While Henry VIII had launched
3920-715: The Elizabethan Religious Settlement , and parliament was not yet strong enough to challenge royal absolutism. England was also well-off compared to the other nations of Europe. The Italian Renaissance had come to an end following the end of the Italian Wars , which left the Italian Peninsula impoverished. The Kingdom of France was embroiled in the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598). They were (temporarily) settled in 1598 by
4032-628: The Royal Navy , Edward and Mary had ignored it and it was little more than a system of coastal defense. Elizabeth made naval strength a high priority. She risked war with Spain by supporting the " Sea Dogs ", such as John Hawkins and Francis Drake , who preyed on the Spanish merchant ships carrying gold and silver from the New World. The Navy yards were leaders in technical innovation, and the captains devised new tactics. Parker (1996) argues that
4144-515: The University of Chicago and Bernice Leary of Xavier College in Chicago published What Makes a Book Readable, one of the most important books in readability research. Like Dale and Tyler, they focused on what makes books readable for adults of limited reading ability. Their book included the first scientific study of the reading skills of American adults. The sample included 1,690 adults from
4256-644: The Wars of the Roses in the previous century, the English Reformation , and the religious battles between Protestants and Catholics prior to Elizabeth's reign, and then the later conflict of the English Civil War and the ongoing political battles between parliament and the monarchy that engulfed the remainder of the seventeenth century. The Protestant/Catholic divide was settled, for a time, by
4368-466: The 16th to the 11th-grade level, where it remains today. Publishers discovered that the Flesch formulas could increase readership up to 60%. Flesch's work made an enormous impact on journalism. The Flesch Reading Ease formula became one of the most widely used, tested, and reliable readability metrics. In 1951, Farr, Jenkins, and Patterson simplified the formula further by changing the syllable count. In
4480-432: The 1940s, Robert Gunning helped bring readability research into the workplace. In 1944, he founded the first readability consulting firm dedicated to reducing the "fog" in newspapers and business writing. In 1952, he published The Technique of Clear Writing with his own Fog Index, a formula that correlates 0.91 with comprehension as measured by reading tests. Edgar Dale , a professor of education at Ohio State University,
4592-576: The 9th to the 6th-grade reading level increased readership by 43% for an article about 'nylon'. He also found a 60% increase in readership for an article on corn, with better responses from people under 35. The result was a gain of 42,000 readers in a circulation of 275,000. Wilber Schramm, who directed the Communications Research program at the University of Illinois interviewed 1,050 newspaper readers in 1947. He found that an easier reading style helps to determine how much of an article
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4704-769: The College Entrance Examination Board. In 1988, Jack Stenner and his associates at MetaMetrics, Inc. published the Lexile Framework for assessing readability and matching students with appropriate texts. The Lexile framework uses average sentence length, and average word frequency in the American Heritage Intermediate Corpus to predict a score on a 0–2000 scale. The AHI Corpus includes five million words from 1,045 published works often read by students in grades three to nine. In 2000, researchers of
4816-413: The English authorities. People who publicly supported Catholicism were excluded from the professions; sometimes fined or imprisoned. This was justified on the grounds that Catholics were not persecuted for their religion but punished for being traitors who supported the Queen's Spanish foe; in practice, however, Catholics perceived it as religious persecution and regarded those executed as martyrs. Lacking
4928-406: The English developed a taste for acidic foods—such as oranges for the upper class—and started to use vinegar heavily. The gentry paid increasing attention to their gardens, with new fruits, vegetables and herbs; pasta, pastries, and dried mustard balls first appeared on the table. The apricot was a special treat at fancy banquets. Roast beef remained a staple for those who could afford it. The rest ate
5040-553: The McCall-Crabbs reading tests. In 1948, Bernard Feld did a study of every item and ad in the Birmingham News of 20 November 1947. He divided the items into those above the 8th-grade level and those at the 8th grade or below. He chose the 8th-grade breakpoint, as that was determined to be the average reading level of adult readers. An 8th-grade text "...will reach about 50% of all American grown-ups," he wrote. Among
5152-544: The School Renaissance Institute and Touchstone Applied Science Associates published their Advantage-TASA Open Standard (ATOS) Reading ease Formula for Books. They worked on a formula that was easy to use and that could be used with any texts. The project was one of the widest reading ease projects ever. The developers of the formula used 650 normed reading texts, 474 million words from all the text in 28,000 books read by students. The project also used
5264-408: The Spanish and Portuguese monopoly of far Eastern trade. It established trading posts, which in later centuries evolved into British India , on the coasts of what is now India and Bangladesh . Larger scale colonisation to North America began shortly after Elizabeth's death. England in this era had some positive aspects that set it apart from contemporaneous continental European societies. Torture
5376-433: The ability of average American adult readers. The reading ease of newspaper articles was not found to have much connection with the education, experience, or personal interest of the journalists writing the stories. It instead had more to do with the convention and culture of the industry. Lostutter argued for more readability testing in newspaper writing. Improved readability must be a "conscious process somewhat independent of
5488-518: The adult population at that time lacked suitable reading materials. They wrote, "For them, the enriching values of reading are denied unless materials reflecting adult interests are adapted to their needs." The poorest readers, one-sixth of the adult population, need "simpler materials for use in promoting functioning literacy and in establishing fundamental reading habits." In 1939, Irving Lorge published an article that reported other combinations of variables that indicate difficulty more accurately than
5600-468: The age of 13, Rubakin published many articles and books on science and many subjects for the great numbers of new readers throughout Russia. In Rubakin's view, the people were not fools. They were simply poor and in need of cheap books, written at a level they could grasp. The earliest reading ease assessment is the subjective judgment termed text leveling . Formulas do not fully address the various content, purpose, design, visual input, and organization of
5712-451: The age of about 14. England's food supply was plentiful throughout most of the reign; there were no famines. Bad harvests caused distress, but they were usually localized. The most widespread came in 1555–57 and 1596–98. In the towns the price of staples was fixed by law; in hard times the size of the loaf of bread sold by the baker was smaller. Trade and industry flourished in the 16th century, making England more prosperous and improving
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#17327978684325824-474: The alphabet and the Lord's Prayer . There were few books, so pupils read from hornbooks instead. These wooden boards had the alphabet, prayers or other writings pinned to them and were covered with a thin layer of transparent cow's horn. There were two types of school in Tudor times: petty school was where young boys were taught to read and write; grammar school was where abler boys were taught English and Latin. It
5936-528: The best indicators of reading ease. He showed that the measures of reading ease worked as well for adults as for children. The same things that children find hard are the same for adults of the same reading levels. He also developed several new measures of cutoff scores. One of the most well known was the Mean Cloze Formula , which was used in 1981 to produce the Degree of Reading Power system used by
6048-454: The closer writing is to speech, the more clear and effective the content becomes. In 1889 in Russia, the writer Nikolai A. Rubakin published a study of over 10,000 texts written by everyday people. From these texts, he took 1,500 words he thought most people understood. He found that the main blocks to comprehension are unfamiliar words and long sentences . Starting with his own journal at
6160-495: The criterion books. It was also the first to introduce the variable of interest to the concept of readability. Between 1929 and 1939, Alfred Lewerenz of the Los Angeles School District published several new formulas. In 1934, educational psychologist Edward Thorndike of Columbia University noted that, in Russia and Germany, teachers used word frequency counts to match books to students. Word skill
6272-511: The degree of reading ease for each kind of reading. The best level for classroom "assisted reading" is a slightly difficult text that causes a "set to learn", and for which readers can correctly answer 50% of the questions of a multiple-choice test. The best level for unassisted reading is one for which readers can correctly answer 80% of the questions. These cutoff scores were later confirmed by Vygotsky and Chall and Conard. Among other things, Bormuth confirmed that vocabulary and sentence length are
6384-413: The difference between Tudor houses and Tudor-style houses easy, as the original beams are not straight. The upper floors of Tudor houses were often larger than the ground floors, which would create an overhang (or jetty ). This would create more floor-surface above while also keeping maximum street width. During the Tudor period, the use of glass when building houses was first used, and became widespread. It
6496-536: The early research, which was later taken up by textbook publishers. In 1921, Harry D. Kitson published The Mind of the Buyer , one of the first books to apply psychology to marketing. Kitson's work showed that each type of reader bought and read their own type of text. On reading two newspapers and two magazines, he found that short sentence length and short word length were the best contributors to reading ease. In 1923, Bertha A. Lively and Sidney L. Pressey published
6608-409: The ease with which humans can read computer program code . Higher readability in a text eases reading effort and speed for the general population of readers. For those who do not have high reading comprehension , readability is necessary for understanding and applying a given text. Techniques to simplify readability are essential to communicate a set of information to the intended audience. Whether it
6720-465: The eastern seaboard of North America occurred in this era—the abortive colony at Roanoke Island in 1587. While Elizabethan England is not thought of as an age of technological innovation, some progress did occur. In 1564 Guilliam Boonen came from the Netherlands to be Queen Elizabeth's first coach-builder —thus introducing the new European invention of the spring-suspension coach to England, as
6832-452: The education and experience of the staffs writers. " In 1948, Flesch published his Reading Ease formula in two parts. Rather than using grade levels, it used a scale from 0 to 100, with 0 equivalent to the 12th grade and 100 equivalent to the 4th grade. It dropped the use of affixes. The second part of the formula predicts human interest by using personal references and the number of personal sentences. The new formula correlated 0.70 with
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#17327978684326944-466: The enemy vessel. When Spain finally decided to invade and conquer England it was a fiasco. Superior English ships and seamanship foiled the invasion and led to the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588, marking the high point of Elizabeth's reign. Technically, the Armada failed because Spain's over-complex strategy required coordination between the invasion fleet and the Spanish army on shore. Moreover,
7056-448: The entry form. In addition each entry must include a cover letter that includes a summary of the story or stories, a discussion of the major findings and results, a review of the process followed to get the story and an account of the difficulty or uniqueness of effort in obtaining the story. The 2012 contest judged more than 1,700 entries. Materials are judged by a panel of distinguished, veteran journalists. For each category one award
7168-524: The family. They were not sent to school. Boys were educated for work and the girls for marriage and running a household so when they married they could look after the house and children. Wealthy families hired a tutor to teach the boys at home. Many Tudor towns and villages had a parish school where the local vicar taught boys to read and write. Brothers could teach their sisters these skills. At school, pupils were taught English, Latin, Greek, catechism and arithmetic. The pupils practised writing in ink by copying
7280-533: The farmers who lived and worked there. Despite the struggles of the lower class, the government tended to spend money on wars and exploration voyages instead of on welfare. About one-third of the population lived in poverty, with the wealthy expected to give alms to assist the impotent poor . Tudor law was harsh on the able-bodied poor , i.e., those unable to find work. Those who left their parishes in order to locate work were termed vagabonds and could be subjected to punishments, including whipping and putting at
7392-544: The fields of cartography and surveying. The eccentric but influential John Dee also merits mention. Much of this scientific and technological progress related to the practical skill of navigation. English achievements in exploration were noteworthy in the Elizabethan era. Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe between 1577 and 1581, and Martin Frobisher explored the Arctic . The first attempt at English settlement of
7504-415: The first reading ease formula. They were concerned that junior high school science textbooks had so many technical words and that teachers would spend all class time explaining these words. They argued that their formula would help to measure and reduce the "vocabulary burden" of textbooks. Their formula used five variable inputs and six constants. For each thousand words, it counted the number of unique words,
7616-586: The formation of the Via Media during the 17th century. She spent the rest of her reign ferociously fending off radical reformers and Roman Catholics who wanted to modify the Settlement of Church affairs: The Church of England was Protestant, "with its peculiar arrested development in Protestant terms, and the ghost which it harboured of an older world of Catholic traditions and devotional practice". For
7728-463: The full-rigged ship was one of the greatest technological advances of the century and permanently transformed naval warfare. In 1573 English shipwrights introduced designs, first demonstrated in the "Dreadnaught", that allowed the ships to sail faster and maneuver better and permitted heavier guns. Whereas before warships had tried to grapple with each other so that soldiers could board the enemy ship, now they stood off and fired broadsides that would sink
7840-413: The globe. Combined with his daring raids against the Spanish and his great victory over them at Cádiz in 1587 , he became a famous hero —his exploits are still celebrated—but England did not follow up on his claims. In 1583, Humphrey Gilbert sailed to Newfoundland, taking possession of the harbour of St. John's together with all land within two hundred leagues to the north and south of it. In 1584,
7952-581: The highest levels of Elizabethan society. High officials in Madrid, Paris and Rome sought to kill Elizabeth, a Protestant, and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots , a Catholic. That would be a prelude to the religious recovery of England for Catholicism. In 1570, the Ridolfi plot was thwarted. In 1584, the Throckmorton Plot was discovered, after Francis Throckmorton confessed his involvement in
8064-528: The importance of organization, coherence, and emphasis in good writing. In the 1880s, English professor L. A. Sherman found that the English sentence was getting shorter. In Elizabethan times, the average sentence was 50 words long while in Sherman's modern time, it was 23 words long. Sherman's work established that: Sherman wrote: "No man should talk worse than he writes, no man should write better than he should talk..." He wrote this wanting to emphasize that
8176-482: The intense religious passions of the time. This was in significant contrast to previous and succeeding eras of marked religious violence. Elizabeth said "I have no desire to make windows into men's souls". Her desire to moderate the religious persecutions of previous Tudor reigns – the persecution of Catholics under Edward VI, and of Protestants under Mary I – appears to have had a moderating effect on English society. Elizabeth, Protestant, but undogmatic one, authorizing
8288-426: The limits of the reading ease formulas, some research looked at ways to measure the content, organization, and coherence of text. Although this did not improve the reliability of the formulas, their efforts showed the importance of these variables in reading ease. Studies by Walter Kintch and others showed the central role of coherence in reading ease, mainly for people learning to read. In 1983, Susan Kemper devised
8400-442: The lower classes. Cumbria, the poorest and most isolated part of England, suffered a six-year famine beginning in 1594. Diseases and natural disasters also contributed to the scarce food supply. In the 17th century, the food supply improved. England had no food crises from 1650 to 1725, a period when France was unusually vulnerable to famines. Historians point out that oat and barley prices in England did not always increase following
8512-485: The military, medicine, and business. The two publications with the largest circulations, TV Guide (13 million) and Reader's Digest (12 million), are written at the 9th-grade level. The most popular novels are written at the 7th-grade level. This supports the fact that the average adult reads at the 9th-grade level. It also shows that, for recreation, people read texts that are two grades below their actual reading level. For centuries, teachers and educators have seen
8624-596: The number of words not on the Thorndike list, and the median index number of the words found on the list. Manually, it took three hours to apply the formula to a book. After the Lively–Pressey study, people looked for formulas that were more accurate and easier to apply. In 1928, Carleton Washburne and Mabel Vogel created the first modern readability formula. They validated it by using an outside criterion, and correlated .845 with test scores of students who read and liked
8736-428: The ones Gray and Leary used. His research also showed that, "The vocabulary load is the most important concomitant of difficulty." In 1944, Lorge published his Lorge Index , a readability formula that used three variables and set the stage for simpler and more reliable formulas that followed. By 1940, investigators had: In 1943, Rudolf Flesch published his PhD dissertation, Marks of a Readable Style , which included
8848-410: The ordinary" (i. e., above their usual rate) to stage the play, which the players felt was too old and "out of use" to attract a large audience. In the last decades of the reign, Elizabeth gave James VI of Scotland an annual annuity or subsidy which contributed to an "amity" or peace between England and Scotland. It became clear that he would be her successor . Plots continued in the new reign. In
8960-526: The other hand, were thin and outdated; England had too few soldiers and they were at best only partially trained. Spain had chosen England's weakest link and probably could have captured London in a week. Parker adds that a Catholic uprising in the north and in Ireland could have brought total defeat. The discoveries of Christopher Columbus electrified all of western Europe, especially maritime powers like England. King Henry VII commissioned John Cabot to lead
9072-419: The period, the economy expanded; though the wealth was distributed with wild unevenness, there was clearly more wealth to go around at the end of Elizabeth's reign than at the beginning. This general peace and prosperity allowed the attractive developments that "Golden Age" advocates have stressed. The Elizabethan Age was also an age of plots and conspiracies, frequently political in nature, and often involving
9184-428: The poor design of the Spanish cannons meant they were much slower in reloading in a close-range battle. Spain and France still had stronger fleets, but England was catching up. Parker has speculated on the dire consequences if the Spanish had landed their invasion army in 1588. He argues that the Spanish army was larger, more experienced, better-equipped, more confident, and had better financing. The English defenses, on
9296-458: The population consumed a diet largely of bread, cheese, milk, and beer, with small portions of meat, fish and vegetables, and occasionally some fruit. Potatoes were just arriving at the end of the period, and became increasingly important. The typical poor farmer sold his best products on the market, keeping the cheap food for the family. Stale bread could be used to make bread puddings, and bread crumbs served to thicken soups, stews, and sauces. At
9408-537: The queen granted Walter Raleigh a charter for the colonisation of Virginia ; it was named in her honour. Raleigh and Elizabeth sought both immediate riches and a base for privateers to raid the Spanish treasure fleets. Raleigh sent others to found the Roanoke Colony ; it remains a mystery why the settlers all disappeared. In 1600, the queen chartered the East India Company in an attempt to break
9520-499: The reading ease of other texts, a method now called scaling . He showed that even though these factors cannot be measured, they cannot be ignored. Also in 1934, Ralph Tyler and Edgar Dale published the first adult reading ease formula based on passages on health topics from a variety of textbooks and magazines. Of 29 factors that are significant for young readers, they found ten that are significant for adults. They used three of these in their formula. In 1935, William S. Gray of
9632-404: The reading records of more than 30,000 who read and were tested on 950,000 books. They found that three variables give the most reliable measure of text reading ease: They also found that: Beginning in the 1970s, cognitive theorists began teaching that reading is really an act of thinking and organization. The reader constructs meaning by mixing new knowledge into existing knowledge. Because of
9744-543: The real and essential presence of Christ in the bread and wine: she believed it so. She was not able to get an unmarried clergy or the Protestant Holy Communion celebrated to look like a Mass. The Apostolic Succession was maintained, the institution of the church continued without a break (with 98% of the clergy remaining at their posts) and the attempt to ban music in church was defeated. The Injunctions of 1571 forbade any doctrines that did not conform to
9856-530: The regime of debt by 1574, and ten years later the Crown enjoyed a surplus of £300,000. Economically, Sir Thomas Gresham 's founding of the Royal Exchange (1565), the first stock exchange in England and one of the earliest in Europe, proved to be a development of the first importance, for the economic development of England and soon for the world as a whole. With taxes lower than other European countries of
9968-524: The short-term rather than drilling words and meanings teachers hope will stick. The incidental learning tactic is meant to help learners build comprehension and learning skills rather than memorizing words. Through this strategy, students would hopefully be able to navigate various levels of readability using context clues and comprehension. During the recession of the 1930s, the U.S. government invested in adult education . In 1931, Douglas Waples and Ralph Tyler published What Adults Want to Read About. It
10080-399: The standard of living of the upper and middle classes. However, the lower classes did not benefit much and did not always have enough food. As the English population was fed by its own agricultural produce, a series of bad harvests in the 1590s caused widespread starvation and poverty. The success of the wool trading industry decreased attention on agriculture, resulting in further starvation of
10192-566: The stocks. The idea of the workhouse for the able-bodied poor was first suggested in 1576. There was an unprecedented expansion of education in the Tudor period. Until then, few children went to school. Those that did go were mainly the sons of wealthy or ambitious fathers who could afford to pay the attendance fee. Boys were allowed to go to school and began at the age of 4, they then moved to grammar school when they were 7 years old. Girls were either kept at home by their parents to help with housework or sent out to work to bring money in for
10304-740: The teaching of the Church Fathers and the Catholic Bishops. The Queen's hostility to strict Calvinistic doctrines blocked the Radicals. Almost no original theological thought came out of the English Reformation; instead, the Church relied on the Catholic Consensus of the first Four Ecumenical Councils. The preservation of many Catholic doctrines and practices was the cuckoos nest that eventually resulted in
10416-832: The type of audience to whom one is presenting a certain type of content to. For example, a technical writer might focus on clear and concise language and formatting that allows easy-reading. In contrast, a scholarly journal would use sophisticated writing that would appeal and make sense to the type of audience to whom they are directing information. Readability is essential to the clarity and accessibility of texts used in classrooms, work environments, and everyday life. The government prioritizes readability as well through Plain Language Laws which enforces important documents to be written at an 8th grade level. Much research has focused on matching prose to reading skill, resulting in formulas for use in research, government, teaching, publishing,
10528-544: The uprising, supporters of the Earl of Essex , among them Charles and Joscelyn Percy (younger brothers of the Earl of Northumberland ), paid for a performance of Richard II at the Globe Theatre , apparently with the goal of stirring public ill will towards the monarchy. It was reported at the trial of Essex by Chamberlain's Men actor Augustine Phillips , that the conspirators paid the company forty shillings "above
10640-529: The vocabulary burden of textbooks. This was the last of the early formulas that used the Thorndike vocabulary-frequency list. Until computers came along, word frequency lists were the best aids for grading reading ease of texts. In 1981 the World Book Encyclopedia listed the grade levels of 44,000 words. A popular strategy amongst educators in modern times is "incidental vocabulary learning," which enforces efficiency in learning vocabulary in
10752-402: The whims of the king or queen. Feasts were commonly used to commemorate the "procession" of the crowned heads of state in the summer months, when the king or queen would travel through a circuit of other nobles' lands both to avoid the plague season of London, and alleviate the royal coffers, often drained through the winter to provide for the needs of the royal family and court. This would include
10864-402: The wire-service stories, the lower group got two-thirds more readers, and among local stories, 75% more readers. Feld also believed in drilling writers in Flesch's clear-writing principles. Both Rudolf Flesch and Robert Gunning worked extensively with newspapers and the wire services in improving readability. Mainly through their efforts in a few years, the readability of US newspapers went from
10976-559: The word lists by regular plurals of nouns, regular forms of the past tense of verbs, progressive forms of verbs etc. In 1948, he incorporated this list into a formula he developed with Jeanne S. Chall , who later founded the Harvard Reading Laboratory. In 1995, Dale and Chall published a new version of their formula with an upgraded word list, the New Dale–Chall readability formula. The Spache readability formula
11088-467: Was a two-year study of adult reading interests. Their book showed not only what people read but what they would like to read. They found that many readers lacked suitable reading materials: they would have liked to learn but the reading materials were too hard for them. Lyman Bryson of Teachers College, Columbia University found that many adults had poor reading ability due to poor education. Even though colleges had long tried to teach how to write in
11200-556: Was already well-established in English and British historical consciousness, long before the accession of Queen Elizabeth II , and generally refers solely to the time of the earlier queen of this name. The Victorian era and the early 20th century idealised the Elizabethan era. The Encyclopædia Britannica maintains that "[T]he long reign of Elizabeth I, 1558–1603, was England's Golden Age... ' Merry England ', in love with life, expressed itself in music and literature, in architecture and in adventurous seafaring". This idealising tendency
11312-503: Was an age of exploration and expansion abroad, while back at home, the Protestant Reformation became more acceptable to the people, most certainly after the Spanish Armada was repelled. It was also the end of the period when England was a separate realm before its royal union with Scotland . The Elizabethan age contrasts sharply with the previous and following reigns. It was a brief period of internal peace between
11424-568: Was basic, with stools being commonplace rather than chairs. The walls of Tudor houses were often made from timber and wattle and daub , or brick; stone and tiles were more common in the wealthier homes. The daub was usually then painted with limewash , making it white, and the wood was painted with black tar to prevent rotting, but not in Tudor times; the Victorians did this afterwards. The bricks were handmade and thinner than modern bricks. The wooden beams were cut by hand, which makes telling
11536-506: Was developed in 1952. In 1963, while teaching English teachers in Uganda, Edward Fry developed his Readability Graph . It became one of the most popular formulas and easiest to apply. The automated readability index was developed in 1967. Harry McLaughlin determined that word length and sentence length should be multiplied rather than added as in other formulas. In 1969, he published his SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook) formula. It
11648-781: Was exploring North America. England was stimulated to create its own colonies, with an emphasis on the West Indies rather than in North America. Martin Frobisher landed at Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island in August 1576; He returned in 1577, claiming it in Queen Elizabeth's name, and in a third voyage tried but failed to found a settlement in Frobisher Bay. From 1577 to 1580, Francis Drake circumnavigated
11760-511: Was necessary for boys to attend grammar school , but girls were rarely allowed in any place of education other than petty schools, and then only with a restricted curriculum. Petty schools were for all children aged from 5 to 7 years of age. Only the most wealthy people allowed their daughters to be taught, and only at home. During this time, endowed schooling became available. This meant that even boys of very poor families were able to attend school if they were not needed to work at home, but only in
11872-417: Was one of the first critics of Thorndike's vocabulary-frequency lists. He claimed that they did not distinguish between the different meanings that many words have. He created two new lists of his own. One, his "short list" of 769 easy words, was used by Irving Lorge in his formula. The other was his "long list" of 3,000 easy words, which were understood by 80% of fourth-grade students. However, one has to extend
11984-618: Was rare, since the English legal system reserved torture only for capital crimes like treason —though forms of corporal punishment, some of them extreme, were practised. The persecution of witches began in 1563, and hundreds were executed, although there was nothing like the frenzy on the Continent. Mary had tried her hand at an aggressive anti-Protestant Inquisition and was hated for it; it was not to be repeated. Nevertheless, more Catholics were persecuted, exiled, and burned alive than under Queen Mary. Elizabeth managed to moderate and quell
12096-548: Was revived in 1572, and often thereafter, to mark the Elizabethan age as a renaissance that inspired national pride through classical ideals, international expansion, and naval triumph over Spain. This "golden age" represented the apogee of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of poetry, music and literature. The era is most famous for its theatre , as William Shakespeare and many others composed plays that broke free of England's past style of theatre. It
12208-450: Was shared by Britain and an Anglophilic America. In popular culture, the image of those adventurous Elizabethan seafarers was embodied in the films of Errol Flynn . In response and reaction to this hyperbole, modern historians and biographers have tended to take a more dispassionate view of the Tudor period. Elizabethan England was not particularly successful in a military sense during the period, but it avoided major defeats and built up
12320-412: Was the best sign of intellectual development, and the strongest predictor of reading ease. In 1921, Thorndike published Teachers Word Book , which contained the frequencies of 10,000 words. He also published his readability formula. He wrote that word skills can be increased if the teacher introduces new words and repeats them often. In 1939, W.W. Patty and W. I Painter published a formula for measuring
12432-450: Was usual for students to attend six days a week. The school day started at 7:00 am in winter and 6:00 am in summer and finished about 5:00 pm. Petty schools had shorter hours, mostly to allow poorer boys the opportunity to work as well. Schools were harsh and teachers were very strict, often beating pupils who misbehaved. Education would begin at home, where children were taught the basic etiquette of proper manners and respecting others. It
12544-435: Was very expensive and difficult to make, so the panes were made small and held together with a lead lattice, in casement windows . People who could not afford glass often used polished horn, cloth or paper. Tudor chimneys were tall, thin, and often decorated with symmetrical patterns of molded or cut brick. Early Tudor houses, and the homes of poorer people, did not have chimneys. The smoke in these cases would be let out through
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