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Literacy rates around the world are abysmal. By around the world, I include in America. Over half of Americans cannot easily read to a grade six reading level. And if they can't read your message easily, they won't read it at all. At the most basic level, shorter words and shorter sentences improve readability.

Fans Saturday night at the opening of Charlie Sheen's Violent Torpedo of Truth: Defeat is Not an Option in Detroit opted out of the show and some reportedly left after just 15 minutes. Many of those that remained booed the actor off the stage that after an hour ended when Sheen never returned from a musical break according to a BBC News report. Charlie Sheen, 45 and fired from the hit-show Two and a Half Men last month, opened Violent Torpedo of Truth show in Detroit Saturday night as the beginning of a tour of 22 shows, 20 of which are in the U.S. and Canada, according to BBC News, and if Saturday night in Detroit was any indication of the level of success Sheen is going to experience from the show, perhaps Charlie Sheen may experience reality after all. CNN reports that Ticketmaster lists on its website 19 shows in 18 U.S. cities with 3 shows in Canada, corroborating the total number of whos listed the BBC News report. There are minor differences of infornation between the two reports in the number and location of the shows, but the single major difference is that the BBC News report makes reference to Sheen's "sold-out" tour, whereas CNN makes the following statement about ticket sales: "Initial word on ticket sales was that the [Detroit] show sold out in 18 minutes. However, prior to the first show, tickets were still available on Ticketmaster as well as the secondary ticket market, which includes online ticket exchanges like Stubhub.com and TicketNetwork.com. Unwanted tickets available on those sites were going for less than face value prior to the show." "Charlie, Charlie, Charlie... when will you ever learn that people never like to hear the truth?" With 21 shows left on his tour, who knows?

Online education has become a crucial part of the modern engineer's continuing professional development (CPD), as the offered courses pullulate year by year, the level of the instructors raises, and the topics spectrum widens and also deepens.

Some experts say advances in artificial intelligence could yield educational tools to accurately assess reading level, comprehension, phonemic awareness, vocabulary and other skills that can be difficult to measure.

Tips and ideas are provided for improving a blog to increase readership, along with how to increase the web presence of a blog within a niche.

The benefits of plain language are huge; the costs of complex writing are equally huge. This case study looks at how we can improve readability just by replacing a few common complex words with simpler alternatives. The results are impressive.