The Up-Goer Five Text Editor: Science, Literacy, and Humor

Want to see if your students really understand the content?  Force them to explain it using only simple words.

Maybe you've seen this text editor -- it's an online tool, created mostly in jest, to force scientists to rewrite their often turgid prose into easier-to-read sections.

You could have students try to explain complex processes, and put their explanations in -- it will really force them to process the information in a new way, and ensure they truly understand what they are trying to communicate.

It was inspired by a wonderful XKCD cartoon: "The Up-Goer Five," an annotated diagram of the Saturn 5 rocket, using only words from the top one-thousand most frequently used words in English.

Here's what the text editor looks like (click the image to go there):

Here's a sample, about the moons of Saturn:

There is a world that goes around the sun, ten times farther away from the sun than the world we live on. This world is really big - about ten times as wide as our world - and most of it is thick air pulled tight together. It has big beautiful rings around it, made of many pieces of ice. 

There are also seven smaller round worlds made of ice and rock that go around this big ringed world. Most of the small worlds going around the big world have lots of marks on them that were made by pieces of rock or ice hitting them. All of these worlds are interesting, but some are especially interesting. 

People wanted to learn about the big ringed world and the smaller worlds that go around it, so they sent a computer into space with computer eyes and a computer nose and other parts to see and smell these worlds and tell us about them.

The smaller world with air and wet stuff:The biggest of these smaller worlds is about a third as wide as our world. It is especially interesting because it has lots of air, and wet stuff running on its outside.

There are very few worlds with wet stuff running on their outsides, so it is interesting and surprising that this world does. 

The wet stuff on this world isn't water. This world is so cold that all the water is ice. But because it's so cold, other things that would be like air on our world are wet on it.

There also aren't very many worlds with lots of air, and it is the only world with lots of air that goes around another world. Also, its air is surprising, because most of it is the same kind of stuff that most of our world's air is made of. It's the only world with air made of this stuff. Its air isn't totally like our air, though. 

Our air is see-through (except where water in the air gets in the way), but this world's air has stuff in it that makes it red and not see-through. The space computer's eyes are different from our eyes, though, and they can see a different kind of light that can go through its air, so they help us see it. 

This world also doesn't have very many marks made by things hitting it. This tells us that something is changing its outside, because things must hit it and make marks, but something makes the marks go away. We are still trying to find out why, but it might be because wind moves stuff into the marks and hides them. 

The big world with rings is beautiful, and the smaller worlds that go around it are also beautiful. They're a bit like people - all different from each other, and each one beautiful in its own way. It's good that we have a space computer to show them to us and tell us more about them.