Magazine Ads. Advertising researchers F. Shuptrine and D. McVicker wanted to determine whether there were significant differences in the readability of magazine advertisements. Thirty magazines were classified based on their educational level—high, mid, or low—and then three magazines were randomly selected from each level. From each magazine, six advertisements were randomly chosen and examined for readability. In this particular case, readability was characterized by the numbers of words, sentences, and words of three syllables or more in each ad. The researchers published their findings in the paper “Readability Levels of Magazine Ads” (Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 21, No. 5, pp. 45–51). The number of words of three syllables or more in each ad are provided on the WeissStats site.