Table 1 Comparison of linguistic variables and readability level across different conclusiveness categories

SMOG index

14.8 (14.4 to 14.9)

15.0 (14.8 to 15.1)

15.1 (14.8 to 15.2)

14.9 (14.7 to 15.0)

15.0 (14.8 to 15.4)

14.9 (14.6 to 15.2)

14.9 (14.7 to 14.9)

15.5 (15.0 to 15.7)

15.0 (14.5 to 15.5)

0.403

Analytic

95.4 (94.7 to 96.1)

95.2 (95.0 to 95.4)

94.4 (93.9 to 94.9)^b

94.6 (94.5 to 95.1)

94.6 (93.5 to 95.4)

95.7 (95.2 to 96.1)

94.8 (94.5 to 95.2)

96.1 (93.4 to 96.9)

96.0 (95.5 to 96.7)

< 0.001

Clout

57.2 (54.4 to 59.6)^c

55.7 (54.7 to 56.7) ^c

55.7 (54.0 to 57.0) ^c

53.5 (52.6 to 54.5) ^c

50.0 (46.1 to 50.0)

53.4 (52.0 to 55.2) ^c

54.2 (53.3 to 55.4) ^c

48.1 (43.3 to 51.4)

49.7 (47.0 to 51.8)

< 0.001

Authentic

23.6 (21.5 to 25.9)

27.5 (25.8 to 28.9)

21.1 (19.0 to 22.6) ^d

28.0 (26.6 to 29.1)

24.3 (19.8 to 29.2)

27.7 (25.6 to 29.0)

26.6 (25.2 to 27.8)

26.6 (20.5 to 33.6)

28.7 (25.5 to 33.8)

< 0.001

Tone

19.6 (14.5 to 25.8)

18.0 (15.7 to 20.6)

25.8 (17.1 to 25.8)^e

17.1 (15.6 to 19.0)

16.7 (13.4 to 19.8)

15.6 (13.3 to 18.2)

18.1 (16.6 to 20.5)

15.6 (7.96 to 25.8)

17.9 (15.1 to 21.2)

0.004

Word count

260 (229 to 297)

365 (346 to 378)^a

220 (204 to 232)

364 (349 to 375) ^a

208 (186 to 230)

298 (278 to 312)

369 (352 to 379) ^a

296 (218 to 336)

356 (326 to 399)^a

< 0.001