ABSTRACT
Many researchers on prose comprehension have used propositional analysis for representing the content of prose materials. Some general rules can be stated for constructing propositional representations of prose material. Some general rules can be stated for constructing propositional representations of prose material. For recall protocols, the material to be “propositionalized” is normally a passage and the propositions form a scoring key. Some propositions place their first argument into a time frame. Possessive forms in English can be confusing because of the looseness of the concept of possession. Idiomatic expressions are not used very often in the technical prose that students have studied, but they are fairly common in literary prose or in subject responses. Propositionalizing a text before it is used is a good way to discover unintended ambiguity before presenting the text to subjects. One very useful procedure to follow during the propositionalization step is to observe and keep in mind obvious synonyms.
