scholarly journals Online Readability of COVID-19 Health Information: a Comparison between Four English Speaking Countries

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy P Worrall ◽  
Mary J Connolly ◽  
Aine O'Neill ◽  
Murray O'Doherty ◽  
Kenneth P Thornton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Health Information ◽  
General Public ◽  
Information Source ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online Information ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
English Speaking

Abstract Introduction: The internet is now the first line source of health information for many people worldwide. In the current Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic, health information is being produced, revised, updated and disseminated at an increasingly rapid rate. The general public are faced with a plethora of misinformation regarding COVID-19 and the readability of online information has an impact on their understanding of the disease. The accessibility of online healthcare information relating to COVID-19 is unknown. We sought to evaluate the readability of online information relating to COVID-19 in four English speaking regions: Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, and compare readability of website source provenance and regional origin.Methods: The Google® search engine was used to collate the first twenty webpage URLs for three individual searches for ‘COVID’, ‘COVID-19’, and ‘coronavirus’ from Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. The Gunning Fog Index (GFI), Flesch-Kincaid Grade (FKG) Score, Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) score were calculated to assess the readability. Results: There were poor levels of readability webpages reviewed, with only 17.2% of webpages at a universally readable level. There was a significant difference in readability between the different webpages based on their information source (p <0.01). Public Health organisations and Government organisations provided the most readable COVID-19 material, while digital media sources were significantly less readable. There were no significant differences in readability between regions. Conclusion: Much of the general public have relied on online information during the pandemic. Information on COVID-19 should be made more readable, and those writing webpages and information tools should ensure universal accessibility is considered in their production. Governments and healthcare practitioners should have an awareness of the online sources of information available, and ensure that readability of our own productions is at a universally readable level which will increase understanding and adherence to health guidelines.

scholarly journals Readability of Online COVID-19 Health Information: A Comparison between Four English Speaking Countries

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy P Worrall ◽  
Mary J Connolly ◽  
Aine O'Neill ◽  
Murray O'Doherty ◽  
Kenneth P Thornton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Health Information ◽  
General Public ◽  
Information Source ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online Information ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
English Speaking

Abstract Background: The internet is now the first line source of health information for many people worldwide. In the current Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic, health information is being produced, revised, updated and disseminated at an increasingly rapid rate. The general public are faced with a plethora of misinformation regarding COVID-19 and the readability of online information has an impact on their understanding of the disease. The accessibility of online healthcare information relating to COVID-19 is unknown. We sought to evaluate the readability of online information relating to COVID-19 in four English speaking regions: Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, and compare readability of website source provenance and regional origin.Methods: The Google® search engine was used to collate the first twenty webpage URLs for three individual searches for ‘COVID’, ‘COVID-19’, and ‘coronavirus’ from Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. The Gunning Fog Index (GFI), Flesch-Kincaid Grade (FKG) Score, Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) score were calculated to assess the readability. Results: There were poor levels of readability webpages reviewed, with only 17.2% of webpages at a universally readable level. There was a significant difference in readability between the different webpages based on their information source (p <0.01). Public Health organisations and Government organisations provided the most readable COVID-19 material, while digital media sources were significantly less readable. There were no significant differences in readability between regions. Conclusion: Much of the general public have relied on online information during the pandemic. Information on COVID-19 should be made more readable, and those writing webpages and information tools should ensure universal accessibility is considered in their production. Governments and healthcare practitioners should have an awareness of the online sources of information available, and ensure that readability of our own productions is at a universally readable level which will increase understanding and adherence to health guidelines.

scholarly journals Readability of online COVID-19 health information: a comparison between four English speaking countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy P. Worrall ◽  
Mary J. Connolly ◽  
Aine O’Neill ◽  
Murray O’Doherty ◽  
Kenneth P. Thornton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Health Information ◽  
General Public ◽  
Information Source ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online Information ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
English Speaking

Abstract Background The internet is now the first line source of health information for many people worldwide. In the current Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic, health information is being produced, revised, updated and disseminated at an increasingly rapid rate. The general public are faced with a plethora of misinformation regarding COVID-19 and the readability of online information has an impact on their understanding of the disease. The accessibility of online healthcare information relating to COVID-19 is unknown. We sought to evaluate the readability of online information relating to COVID-19 in four English speaking regions: Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, and compare readability of website source provenance and regional origin. Methods The Google® search engine was used to collate the first 20 webpage URLs for three individual searches for ‘COVID’, ‘COVID-19’, and ‘coronavirus’ from Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. The Gunning Fog Index (GFI), Flesch-Kincaid Grade (FKG) Score, Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) score were calculated to assess the readability. Results There were poor levels of readability webpages reviewed, with only 17.2% of webpages at a universally readable level. There was a significant difference in readability between the different webpages based on their information source (p < 0.01). Public Health organisations and Government organisations provided the most readable COVID-19 material, while digital media sources were significantly less readable. There were no significant differences in readability between regions. Conclusion Much of the general public have relied on online information during the pandemic. Information on COVID-19 should be made more readable, and those writing webpages and information tools should ensure universal accessibility is considered in their production. Governments and healthcare practitioners should have an awareness of the online sources of information available, and ensure that readability of our own productions is at a universally readable level which will increase understanding and adherence to health guidelines.

scholarly journals Online Readability of COVID-19 Health Information

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy P Worrall ◽  
Mary J Connolly ◽  
Aine O'Neill ◽  
Murray O'Doherty ◽  
Kenneth P Thornton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Health Information ◽  
General Public ◽  
Information Source ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Flesch Reading Ease ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Ease Score

Abstract Introduction: The internet is now the first line source of health information for many people worldwide. In the current Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic, health information is being produced, revised, updated and disseminated at an increasingly rapid rate. The general public are faced with a plethora of misinformation regarding COVID-19 and the readability of online information has an impact on their understanding of the disease. The accessibility of online healthcare information relating to COVID-19 is unknown.Methods: The Google® search engine was used to collate the first twenty webpage URLs for three individual searches for ‘COVID’, ‘COVID-19’, and ‘coronavirus’ from Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. The Gunning Fog Index (GFI), Flesch-Kincaid Grade (FKG) Score, Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) score were calculated to assess the readability.Results: There were poor levels of readability webpages reviewed, with only 17.2% of webpages at a universally readable level. There was a significant difference in readability between the different webpages based on their information source (p <0.01). Public Health organisations and Government organisations provided the most readable COVID-19 material, while digital media sources were significantly less readable. There were no significant differences in readability between regions.Conclusion: Much of the general public have relied on online information during the pandemic. Information on COVID-19 should be made more readable, and those writing webpages and information tools should ensure universal accessibility is considered in their production. Governments and healthcare practitioners should have an awareness of the online sources of information available, and ensure that readability of our own productions is at a universally readable level which will increase understanding and adherence to health guidelines.

Nathan Dunn (1782–1844) as Anti-Opium China Trader and Sino-Western Cultural Intermediary

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Trading Strategies ◽  
Opium Trade ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Cultural Intermediary

American trader Nathan Dunn’s experience as a private China trader shows that one individual can indeed make a difference. A practicing Quaker who refused to buy or sell opium, Dunn pioneered innovative trading strategies while championing a mercantile code that was unusual for his day. At a time when few Americans regarded the opium trade as inappropriate, he showed that it was possible to succeed in the Canton Trade without dealing in opium. Dunn was also a dedicated educator of Chinese culture. He seems to have found his life’s purpose in bringing an understanding of China to English-speaking audiences. Unlike virtually all of his contemporaries except for Robert Waln Jr., his aim was not to trade and get wealthy purely for the sake of personal aggrandizement. Rather, it was to become a self-educated, self-proclaimed advocate for China in the United States and later in the United Kingdom. The wealth that he gained through trade provided funds needed to realize his higher calling. In addition, he was arguably the pioneer of Sinological museology and ethnology in both the United States and Europe. Because of the earnestness and thoroughness of his quest, he elevated both sciences beyond the level of randomly collecting ‘cabinets of curiosities’. Shortly after he established a ‘Chinese Museum’ in Philadelphia in 1838, several other similar museums appeared in America and England, although none were as focussed and all-encompassing or as positively inclined as his.

A Scale for Measuring a Tory Streak in Canada and the United States

1977 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 597-614
Author(s):  
Tom Truman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Attitude Scale ◽  
English Canada ◽  
The Political ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Canadian

This paper reports the making and testing of an attitude scale to be used in measuring toryism-conservatism in both English Canada and the United States (and any other English-speaking country). The fact that the scale is to be used on both sides of the border affects the kinds of items included in the scale, but more of that later.The inspiration for creating the toryism-conservatism scale came from Gad Horowitz's contention that the political cultures of both the United States and English-speaking Canada are Lockean liberal in content, but the English-Canadian political culture is different from the American because it has a “tory streak” which came in with the United Empire Loyalists, the expelled American “tories,” and was reinforced by later immigrations from the United Kingdom.

scholarly journals Confession to Make: Inadvertent Confessions and Admissions in United Kingdom and United States Police Contexts

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luna Filipović
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Legal Representation ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Questioning Techniques ◽  
English Speaking

Previous studies have addressed many different kinds of confessions in police investigations – real, false, coerced, fabricated – and highlighted both psychological and social mechanisms that underlie them. Here, we focus on inadvertent confessions and admissions, which occur when a suspect appears to be confessing without being fully aware of doing so, or when police officers believe they have a confession or admission of guilt when in fact this is not the case. The goal of the study is to explain when, how and why these confessions and admissions occur as well as how they are dealt with in two different jurisdictions, the United States and the United Kingdom. We use a discourse analysis approach because inadvertent confessions and admissions of guilt are the product of miscommunication – they happen because the speaker’s meaning and the hearer’s meaning are misaligned. The data consist of 50 interviews from the United Kingdom and 50 interrogations from the United States with both English-speaking and non-English speaking suspects. Our results demonstrate that inadvertent confessions can occur in both locales due to reliance on inference, which is inevitable since inference is the backbone of any human communication, as well as due to additional factors such as linguistic, cultural and procedural issues. We found that these phenomena are more frequent and less well controlled for in the United States context due to (a) no systematic checking of understanding, (b) adversarial questioning techniques and an absence of legal representation, and (c) lack of professional, high-quality interpreting. We discuss the implications of our findings for current efforts to improve access to justice, custodial procedures and language services, and we make recommendations for the implementation of our research in professional practice.

scholarly journals Islamic Indonesian EFL students’ responses on English-speaking countries

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Luli Sari Yustina ◽  
Syayid Sandi Sukandi ◽  
Nurkhairat Arniman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Cross Culture ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
English Speaking

EFL students learn English within the notion of English as an international language. The gap in this research is to study the learning of English as a language to the study of the culture of the English-speaking countries. This gap emerged after cross-culture understanding was taught in a one-semester course at an Islamic state university in Indonesia. Phenomenology is the theory used in this research, within the qualitative research approach and descriptive statistics. 110 respondents were given the questionnaires, with open-ended questions asking four interrelated questions about the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Australia as the three English-speaking countries. The respondents’ answers in the questionnaire were analysed by using codes, or themes, that later on show the frequency of each theme. The answers were categorized according to the themes and the percentage based on frequency. Thus, the findings of this research highlighted that Indonesian Muslim students have certain themes when looking at English-speaking countries, such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Australia when they learn English as a foreign language.

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