The style files: appearance affects communication; but not necessarily as you like

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Roberts, Tony. 2007. "The style files: appearance affects communication; but not necessarily as you like." Gazette of the Australian Mathematical Society. 34 (2), pp. 78-80.
Article Title

The style files: appearance affects communication; but not necessarily as you like

ERA Journal ID67
Article CategoryArticle
Authors
AuthorRoberts, Tony
Journal TitleGazette of the Australian Mathematical Society
Journal Citation34 (2), pp. 78-80
Number of Pages3
Year2007
Place of PublicationAustralia
ISSN0311-0729
1326-2297
Web Address (URL)http://www.austms.org.au/Publ/Gazette/2007/May07/078StyleFiles.pdf
Abstract

Many people are trained to produce documents that look appealing. For example, many favour the supposedly clean appearance of a sans serif font such as the mainstream Arial. However, research by Australian Colin Wheildon [6] showed that a miserable 12% of readers comprehended a text in a sans serif font; in comparison, 67% of readers comprehended the same text when it was typeset in a serif font (as is the bulk of this document). Not only does a supposedly pretty or clean appearance not equate to effective communication, it is far different.

Keywordstechnical writing, scientific writing, writing style
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020360205. Technical writing
499999. Other mathematical sciences not elsewhere classified
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Byline AffiliationsDepartment of Mathematics and Computing
Institution of OriginUniversity of Southern Queensland
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