The Ig Nobel Prize-winning `` Analysis results of why legal documents are difficult to read '' is summarized in an easy-to-understand manner
Legal texts such as legal provisions and contracts are harder to read than regular texts. A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that analyzed the causes of this 'difficulty in reading legal documents' won the 2022 Ig Nobel Prize. Members of the research team sent comments to MIT at the time of the award, so I summarized them together with the research content.
Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives processing difficulty in legal language - ScienceDirect
Objection: No one can understand what you're saying | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
https://news.mit.edu/2022/legal-writing-understanding-0307
MIT cognitive scientists win Ig Nobel for shedding light on legalese | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
https://news.mit.edu/2022/mit-cognitive-scientists-win-ig-nobel-shedding-light-legalese-0916
The following text is part of the Japanese Consumer Contract Law . In this sentence, there are two sentences that explain the definition of the word 'quantity, etc.', and the length of the inserted sentence makes the whole sentence very difficult to read.
When a business solicits the conclusion of a consumer contract, the consumer shall indicate the amount, number of times, or period of goods, rights, services, or any other object of the consumer contract (hereinafter referred to as 'amount, etc.' in this paragraph). ) is a normal amount for the consumer (the content and terms of the consumer contract, the living situation of the consumer when the business solicits the conclusion of the contract, and the consumer's The amount, etc. that is normally assumed as the amount, etc., of the subject matter of the consumer contract in light of recognition; the same shall apply hereinafter in this paragraph). If you have made an offer for a consumer contract or have indicated your intention to accept it, you can cancel it.
In other parts of the Consumer Contract Act, there are sentences that are structured in such a way that there are further parentheses in the 'sentence explaining the definition of words' enclosed in parentheses, and I am not used to reading legal documents. It is very difficult for people to understand.
The provisions of the preceding article shall apply to a business operator entrusting a third party to act as an intermediary for the conclusion of a consumer contract between the business operator and a consumer (hereinafter simply referred to as 'entrustment' in this paragraph). , a third party that has received such entrustment (including those that have received entrustment (including entrustment over two or more stages) from the third party; hereinafter referred to as 'consignee, etc.') will provide the consumer with the same Applies mutatis mutandis to cases where the acts prescribed in Articles 1 through 4 are committed.
It has long been pointed out that examples of inserting ``sentences explaining the definition of words'' in sentences exist not only in Japanese legal documents but also in English legal documents as well. In addition, it was thought that English legal documents had other characteristics such as `` all sentences are written in capital letters '' and `` technical terms that are not used in everyday life are used ''. The MIT research team analyzed sentences totaling more than 10 million words such as academic documents, blog articles, fiction, magazines, news articles, web pages, etc. to investigate sentence structures specific to legal documents.
As a result of the analysis, legal documents ``insert a ``sentence explaining the definition of the word'' in the sentence, ``all the sentences are written in capital letters,'' ``use technical terms that are not used in everyday life,'' and `` It turned out that there is a feature such as 'written in the passive voice'. Furthermore, as a result of having 100 subjects read `` sentences containing the characteristics of legal documents '' and `` sentences not including the characteristics of legal documents '' written about the same content, `` all sentences are written in capital letters '' Characteristics such as 'written in the passive voice' do not affect comprehension, and 'technical terms not used in everyday life are used' and 'sentences explaining the definition of words' are inserted into the sentences. It became clear that features such as ” significantly lower the comprehension.
The above study, which analyzes the causes of legibility in legal documents, won the 2022 Ig Nobel Prize for Literature . Edward Gibson, a member of the research team at the time of the award, said, ``When lawyers add sentences to contracts, they tend to pile up the conditions in the sentence and make the sentence very long.Such sentences are human. It is difficult for them to understand. They should be broken down into separate sentences.' Also, Eric Martinez, also a member of the research team, said, ``These sentences are difficult to read even for lawyers,'' pointing out that legal documents are difficult to understand even for those who are familiar with them. I'm here.
The 2022 Ig Nobel Prize has been awarded for a number of interesting studies, such as ``How fingers are used in rotating cylindrical knobs'' by Japanese researchers. An overview of the 2022 Ig Nobel Prize winners and research content can be found in the article below.
Summary of the 2022 Ig Nobel Prize winners for interesting and thought-provoking research, the 16th consecutive Japanese award-GIGAZINE
Related Posts:
in Science, Posted by log1o_hf