Reading Mudoc Publications
Described below are some of the things the mudoc software and interactive movable type (along with mudoc reference substructures, text-to-speech software, and related tools) will do for consumers of mudoc publications:
1. They will enable readers to function at much higher levels of perceptual and cognitive efficiency. Most readers of text set in interactive movable type will, with experience, achieve rates of assimilation and levels of comprehension that will make them, at least by today's standards, superreaders.
2. They will enable most individuals to teach themselves to read and to advance their reading skills to high levels. Most children who have mudoc publications available in their homes, in their day care centers, in their Head Start programs, or elsewhere, will know how to read before they start school. With such tools, universal literacy will become an attainable goal. And today's partially literate generation could be succeeded by a superliterate generation.
3. They will enable each reader to function as an expert in the language of the text he or she is reading or learning to read. The expertise will come, in part, from mudoc reference substructures stored in optical discs (DVDs) or other high capacity stores from which the reader can get immediate visual and/or aural answers (pronunciations, definitions, etymologies, grammatical characteristics, examples of use, synonyms, antonyms, pictures, drawings, tables, maps, charts, computer graphics, etc.) to questions asked about any word found in mudoc text.
4. They will make learning a new language, or reading text in a language other than the reader's primary language, easier and faster. The collection of linguistic and translation tools provided in dual-language reference substructures will make it possible for the reader to interpret and understand the text in any "foreign" language statement or document that he or she might want to read.
5. They will enable individuals to read mudoc publications despite the presence of physical or mental impairments. For example, readers without sight will be able to access any of the text elements in any mudoc publication and will be able, in most cases, to assimilate that text (as compressed speech) at rates up to six or eight hundred words per minute. In addition, the non-text images in mudoc publications will be accompanied by verbal descriptions that can be read by visually-impaired readers - or by any other reader who wants more information about any particular picture, graphic, video segment, or other kind of illustration included in the publication. The aged, the learning-disabled, and others with diminished capacity or with other kinds of physical or mental impairments will also have available either built-in or add-on tools that will enable them to optimize whatever capabilities they do have.
The methods used to store, handle, and present text will distinguish mudoc publications from today's electronic publications. With interactive movable type, mudoc publications will provide individuals with a new kind of reading experience. And, with the kind of illustrations made possible by the interactive multimedia computing tools that are either now available or will soon appear, mudoc publications will be easier to understand, richer in meaning, wider in scope, more effective in learning, more satisfying in reading, and more engaging than any kind of publication being produced today.
©1999, The Mudoc Corporation
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