Thompson and Sealey's article is an interesting example of analyzing English in a scientific way. Analyzed as a lab and presented in a lab report format, the two experiment to conclude the frequency between parts of speech in children's literature and adult literature, and the context of these frequencies.

Unfortunately, I found the report hard to read and pretty much useless. Words on the frequency lists were essentially identical, and were far too basic to make any true conclusions: the, of, man, etc etc.

Their main conclusion--that the two types of literature use essentially the same basic words but that they take on more abstract meanings in adult literature--is, at least to me, an obvious statement. The technical writing and tables/lists were convoluted and redundant, and the report lacked brevity. Just to count the frequency of such basic words and sequence structures without context do nothing to examine the difference in message between child and adult literature, or at least that's my opinion.