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Actually, I know of one very old article that did indeed try to determine
if motivated readers would plow through turgid text to get information they
needed. The conclusion was that no.
B.M. Kantrowitz, "What Price Technical Editing: Phase I: Reaching a Lay
Audience," _IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication_ PC-28, no. 1
(1985): 13-19.
Anybody got any newer citations?
On Thu, 8 Feb 1996 09:39:21, Stewart Walker posed the question:
>The motivation situation with manuals is different. The reader of a manual
>is more motivated, as they have a particular reason for using the manual
>(typically they are looking to learn something or find some information to
>help them with a task). Putting on my devil's advocate hat, perhaps this
>increased motivation and different purpose for using a publication has
>*different* implications on how information in manuals should be designed.
>It could even be that the increased motivation will make readers put up with
>*worse* design and typography than discretionary readers.
