What makes for effective reading, then? Before trying to answer this question, one has to acknowledge that the answer is complicated and depends on individual users' familiarity with the reading tools that they are using and the purpose for which they are reading. With that in mind, these studies suggest at least a few features. Readers should be able to clearly see the text, and the more text that can be placed within their field of vision at a time, the better. They should have a means for accessing their current place within the text, as well as the ability to quickly move through the text to find information. Finally, they should be familiar with the reading technology, so they can ignore it and simply read.
I argue that the differences revealed in these studies are not between paper and screen, as Jabr suggests, or even between print and digital. Rather, these differences in reading comprehension seem to be a product of how readers interface with these print and electronic technologies and the affordances that each provides to these readers.
