Re: AERT 12.3 proposal

Suggestions for 12.3 (Divide large blocks of information into more
manageable groups where natural and appropriate)

12.3.4 - Break up long sentences
evaluation: any sentences within the document
In English, if the sentence has:
- more than two verbs (not including compounds) or
- is more than twenty words or
- has more than two relative or subordinate clauses then
inform the user that the sentence may be too long and allow them to change
the sentence.

A dictionary of verbs may be used to detect verbs. Can a verb be detected
within a sentence without using a dictionary? Can relative or subordinate
clauses be machine counted? Does anyone have some links to algorithms for
detecting grammatical structure of sentences?

12.3.5 - Break up long paragraphs
evaluation: any paragraphs within the document
How long is too long?

12.3.6 - Break up 'long stretches of text' using headers
evaluation: any text blocks longer than?

Chris





----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles McCathieNevile" <charles@w3.org>
To: "Chris Ridpath" <chris.ridpath@utoronto.ca>
Cc: "WAI ER group" <w3c-wai-er-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2000 1:31 AM
Subject: Re: AERT 12.3 proposal


> For a sentence in english, more than two verbs (not including compounds)
is
> long. More than twenty words is long. More than two relative or
subordinate
> clauses is long. (These are not hard and fast figures, just a workable
> base. "Cease your current combative agression towards my person" is too
long,
> but won't get picked up by the checks outlined...)
>
> cheers
>
> Charles McCN
>
> (Maybe looking for my .sig is a good test for things that are too long,
too
> *grin*)
>
> On Wed, 14 Jun 2000, Chris Ridpath wrote:
> [snip]
>   The WCAG also mentions using headers to 'break up long stretches of
text'.
>   But what is a 'long stretch' of text? How much text to a paragraph? How
many
>   paragraphs to a header? How much text to a page? Yikes - I think this
may
>   have to be a manual check.
>
>   Chris
>

Received on Thursday, 15 June 2000 09:31:53 UTC