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Software to Determine the Readability of Written Documents by Implementing a Variation of the Gunning Fog Index Using the Google Linguistic Corpus

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Applied Technologies (ICAT 2019)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1193))

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Abstract

In English linguistics the Gunning Fog Index is used to determine the readability of texts. This methodology isn’t as effective in the Spanish language because the complexity of words isn’t determined by the number of syllables, unlike what happens in English. Therefore, a software was developed that allows us to estimate the readability of an academic text written in Spanish in a quantitative way. This software allows to compare the traditional methodology of the Gunning fog index and a modification to it, using the corpus linguistics for the Spanish language, based on thousands of texts digitized by Google, where the frequency of use of certain words is related. Texts produced by students from first to last semester were evaluated. Each text was subjected to the Gunning fog index assessment methodology and the corpus methodology, changing the percentage of complex words to the percentage of unknown words. In the evaluation of first semester texts it was found that the average fog index was 29.25, and an average of 37.9 complex words, for these same texts was found a modified fog index of 18.62 and 5.1 unknown words. On the other hand, for the evaluation of the texts produced in the last semester, the average fog index was 27.55 and an average of 51.4 complex words, with the modified fog index was an average of 15.08 and 7.1 unknown words. With this study, aspects related to the best use of punctuation marks and the increase of vocabulary related to the profession can be identified in a quantitative way.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Grupo de Investigación en Electrónica Industrial y Ambiental – GIEIAM, Universidad Santiago de Cali, Cali, Colombia

    Luis Carlos Rodríguez Timaná, Diego Fernando Saavedra Lozano & Javier Ferney Castillo García

Authors
  1. Luis Carlos Rodríguez Timaná
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  2. Diego Fernando Saavedra Lozano
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  3. Javier Ferney Castillo García
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Javier Ferney Castillo García .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Miguel Botto-Tobar

  2. Universidad Técnica del Norte, Ibarra, Ecuador

    Marcelo Zambrano Vizuete

  3. Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja, Loja, Ecuador

    Pablo Torres-Carrión

  4. Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas (ESPE), Quito, Ecuador

    Sergio Montes León

  5. Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, Guayaquil, Ecuador

    Guillermo Pizarro Vásquez

  6. International University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

    Benjamin Durakovic

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Rodríguez Timaná, L.C., Saavedra Lozano, D.F., Castillo García, J.F. (2020). Software to Determine the Readability of Written Documents by Implementing a Variation of the Gunning Fog Index Using the Google Linguistic Corpus. In: Botto-Tobar, M., Zambrano Vizuete, M., Torres-Carrión, P., Montes León, S., Pizarro Vásquez, G., Durakovic, B. (eds) Applied Technologies. ICAT 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1193. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42517-3_31

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42517-3_31

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-42516-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-42517-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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