Although reading is an important, albeit complex, everyday activity, the ability to comprehend adequately what has been read is similarly important. Recently, Moriarty and Scheiner ( 3 ) presented advertising copy in four text types, the factorial combination of letterspacing (close, regular) and typeface (serif, sans serif). The dependent measure was total words read in 105 sec. Close-type text resulted in a significantly greater number of words read, and the authors concluded the use of close-set type holds the promise of increased legibility, at least under certain conditions (3, p. 702). Such a conclusion, though, is only partially correct. Apart from reading rate, the authors should have reported subjects' comprehension or retention of material read. It seems imperative to advertisers that potential customers know something about the product(s) they may purchase. While the Moriarty and Scheiner results indicate rhat close-type text produced the fastest reading rate, there is no reported evidence that this text type similarly leads to superior comprehension or retention. For instance, one of the other three text types might have resulted in greater comprehension. Unfortunately one does not know this, given the current results. Partial support for the above observation that faster reading does not necessarily imply superior comprehension comes from a study conducted by Homa ( I ) , in which two speed-readers (claiming rates in excess of 15,000 words per minute) participated in a variety of perceptual and cognitive tasks, one being assessment of their reading comprehension. Following three chances to read through a lengthy text on human memory ( 2 ) , each speed-reader took an 80-item four-alternative multiple-choice exam covering the text. Their average score was 11 (13.75%), although reading rates averaged 27,000 words per minute. Of course, the subjects in the Moriarty and Scheiner srudy were not speed-reading, but the implications are dear. Researchers should not overgeneralize Moriarty and Scheiner's results, which could possibly be inferred to indicate that close-type text would have also been comprehended or retained better than the other varieties. This is certainly open to investigation. In condusion, this note was intended to suggest that experiments of this type could include a variety of measures of performance, as reading rate only tells us something about rate and not necessarily comprehension, retention, or related measures of textprocessing ability and understanding.