In order to maintain an unbiased approach, article topics were chosen at random from a list of subjects that were considered to be the top 10 Google searches at the time. As required by the instructor, articles were not to be longer than 1,200 words and the rewritten story version needed to be of the same word count (within 100 words more or less).
- 10 people received article #1 and another 10 people received its rewrite.
- 10 people received article #2 and another 10 people received its rewrite.
- The 20 people who received article/rewrite #1 completed one survey, while the 20 people who received article/rewrite #2 completed a different one. This was done to compare the responses directly.
- There were 40 people surveyed in total.