**5. Discussion and Implications of the Results**

This research highlights the readability issues in the sub-contracting's tender documents in Egypt. In light of reviewing the literature of the construction documents' readability risks, this investigation seems to be the first known contribution in this respect, either in Egypt or internationally. This supports the value of this study towards the knowledge account because it reveals the characteristics of the factors obstructing the comfortability in reading and apprehending the sub-contracting's tender documentation. This contribution has been achieved, using the CAA to analyze the documents of 34 tenders of the subcontracting arrangement. As a result, 14 readability issues have been defined, along with their RF, RFA, and R for the statistical analysis. Of these, as Table 3 illustrates, 10 issues, including RI1 to RI10 have been present in the prior works of the readability of contracts. Yet, four issues, from RI11 to RI14 have been noticed as distinctive factors regarding the subcontracting's tender documents. This is a vital implication, because it adds 4 new elements to the limited existing risk checklists of construction documentation readability, particularly in the tender documents-related field. More significantly, it means that although the majority of the readability issues may be similar in different construction documents' types, each type of documentation has its relevant issues. Accordingly, it can be deduced that the construction documents' readability risks are documents-distinct factors. Koc and Gurgun [15] also agree with this significant conclusion that the readability issues may differ

depending on the contract type. Based on this consensus, realizing additional researches in the future for scrutinizing each particular type of the construction documentation in terms of its readability issues is warranted. Hence, more inclusive theories and practices can be developed, supporting improving the wording of the construction documents.

By analyzing the RF, RFA, and R of the 14 readability issues, it has been shown that "poor presentation of the format of the tender documentation" (RI1), "sentences and clauses are too long and complicated" (RI2), "spelling and grammatical errors" (RI3), "abstractness or vagueness of words or sentences" (RI4), "using controversial phrases" (RI5), "repetition of provisions or clauses" (RI8), "poor illustration of procedure or process" (RI9), and "listing conditions that are not related to the tender scope" (RI12) are the top-eight frequent issues of the readability in the sub-contracting's tender documents. Each of which is with an occurrence in all of the tender documents, accounting for 9.1398% of the grand total of the RFA of the 14 readability issues. Thus, in total, they represent 73.1184% of the problems encountered by the sub-contractors regarding the ease of interpreting the documentation of the tenders to which they are invited to. This result is a crucial message for the drafters of the sub-contracting's tender documentation, making them aware of the major recurrent mistakes that they are responsible for when preparing these documents. Another significant message for those drafters in this regard is that they can recognize the other 6 readability issues, which have been mentioned in some of the tender documents. These issues together exemplify 26.8816% of the whole summation of the RFA of the readability issues. They are, in descending order of their RFA percentages: "using specific vocabulary, legal terms, and legal jargon" (RI6), "lack of/poor visual representations" (RI10), "referring to engineering terminology, code, or specification that are not frequent to all disciplines" (RI7), "transliteration of English words/idioms into Arabic" (RI14), "using abbreviations without illustrating their definitions" (RI11), and "inconsistencies among the tender clauses" (RI13).

By taking a closer look into these factors, the characteristics of the readability issues in the sub-contracting's tender documents can be summarized in four pivots: (a) structural and presentation-related problems, (b) lengthening and repetition-related problems, (c) textrelated problems, and (d) terminology-related problems. The structural and presentationrelated problems appear in RI1, RI9, and RI10. This pivot highlights that the poorer the quality level on which the tender documentation is formatted and produced, the lower the visual representation and the information flow of the tender scope for the sub-contractor. This fact stems from the case that, when the sub-contractor is unable to know and see all the detailed data of the requested work consistently, avoiding the risk of misunderstanding becomes extremely low [15]. The consequence of this relation may extend further to discourage the sub-contractor to read the tender documentation and negatively impact on his/her decision towards participating in the tender. So, it is exceedingly recommended that releasing the tender documentation should be in a proper presentation, whether in the format or the content of its structure, data, and drawings. This is a highly necessary feature that each document should have for comprehensively and clearly providing the subcontractor with the tender scope. This recommendation can easily be achieved by following the corresponding anti-measures of the issues of this pivot (see Table 5). This is another implication of this study, as it not only contributes to determining, analyzing, and ranking the readability issues in the sub-contracting's tender documents, but also introduces a framework of the countermeasures of the identified issues. Relying upon Table 5, RI1 can be avoided, employing suitable font size and type, indentation, and line spacing for enhancing the documents' general format and their readability for the reader in particular [26]. Further, by supporting the tender procedures with a flow chart or illustrative examples and attaching all the detailed drawings adequately with the tender documentation package, RI9 and RI10 can be eliminated, respectively. Notably, the consideration of these anti-measures has multiple benefits for the sub-contractor, including enabling him to see, read, and understand the tender documents more clearly; reducing his/her misunderstanding risk; and consequently, encouraging him to participate in the tender.

RI2, RI8, and RI12 represent the second dimension of the readability issues in the sub-contracting's tender documents. As these issues point, they contribute to lengthening the tender documents' sentences and clauses and increasing the size of the tender documentation package. According to Koc and Gurgun [15], the negative consequence of RI2 on the readability, with respect to the contracts, encompasses reducing the willingness of the readers to read them precisely. Consequently, they can overlook matters that could be crucial in defining their obligations and rights. As for RI8 and RI12, they cause the contract documents to be voluminous, resulting in the complexity of extracting the information. As a result, the attention of the reader can be distracted from the main relevant conditions of the contract. Combining these impacts together, the possible result is that exposing the reader to the problems with ease-of-reading. As the author noticed when analyzing the 34 tender documents, three causative factors may be behind the occurrence of RI2, RI8, and RI12. First, the drafters are not sufficiently skilled to formulate the tender documentation's sentences and clauses in a shorter and informative manner. Second, given their utilization of a standardized template for producing any tender documentation package, regardless the scope it reflects, the documents include repetitive and unnecessary clauses. Third, the documentation package has been issued without an accurate revision, either from the drafters or their managers. Although this analysis reveals the root causes of the lengthening and repetition-related issues of the sub-contracting's tender documents, it has two significant implications for controlling them. First, the drafters' skills need to be honed to master how a sentence or clause in a document can be written shortly in an informative way. This is achievable by involving the drafters in training courses to learn from the expertise of the academics and practitioners in this field. Second, the managers of the drafters should set a precise multi-step system for revising the documentation before being released. The steps of this system can incorporate a senior drafter to review the works of his/her junior drafting team, followed by the approval of the manager of the tenders' preparation department.

Table 5 provides additional recommendations for addressing the issues of RI2, RI8, and RI12. In terms of RI2, this table indicates that the words number per sentence should be within 20 words. This is an important feature that each sentence should have since long sentences have been highlighted by many scholars and practitioners as a major source of the lack of clarity and misinterpretation [13]. As for RI8 and RI12, it can be informed that the size of the tender documentation package must be as simple as possible by eliminating the repeated provisions, clauses, or the irrelevant conditions to the tender scope. This makes the reading of the sub-contracting's tender documentation easier and increases the attention of the sub-contractor on the pertinent terms of the tender.

Pivot three of the readability issues is concerned with the text-related problems. Its relevant issues are RI3, RI4, RI5, and RI13. As Table 2 pinpoints, the explanations of these issues reflect that the text-related problems are responsible for causing the tender documentation's sentences and clauses to have a poor language structure and be inconsistent, unclear, and incomprehensible. The consequences of these issues are that they cause the sub-contractor to interpret the tender documents' provisions and clauses in a different sense than what the general contractor intends to tell. Consequently, the chance of interpreting the tender documentation's provisions and clauses with a high degree of commonality by the subcontractor and the prime contractor becomes low [12]. Hence, the agreement between these two parties on their duties and rights being elusive, leading to the risk of disputes [13]. Rameezdeen and Rodrigo [21] also support this analysis, that the lower the readability of a construction document is, the higher is the disputes between the contracting parties. In the same vein, Koc and Gurgun [33] confirmed that if the construction documents are not understandable because of the inconsistency and ambiguity in their clauses, the failure of the contractual relationship between the involved parties is inevitable. For avoiding such consequences, Table 5 suggests that first, the seniors of the drafting teams and the managers of the tenders' preparation departments should adopt the above-proposed revising system of the tender documentation. This system can assist in refining the tender documents' sentences and clauses in terms of their language structure, so as to enhance their readability. More importantly, it allows them to check the consistency among the tender clauses for assuring that they are consistent with each other having the same meaning for the sub-contractor. Second, they advise to employ the words of the unique meaning, rather than those with multiple interpretations, and avoiding using the controversial phrases. This is a valuable recommendation because it enables the sub-contractors to know their responsibilities and rights without the risks of misinterpretation or ambiguity.

RI6, RI7, RI11, and RI14 signify the terminology-related problems. Referring to the descriptions of these issues in Table 2, they result in the presence of incomprehensible terminology for the sub-contractor, encompassing specialized legal and engineering terms, abbreviations, and literally translated words/idioms from English into Arabic. Unfortunately, finding the intended meaning of such specific terms could be a time-consuming and too-difficult process for the sub-contractor [34], resulting in the unclarity and readability risks [13,15]. The reason behind the existence of these problems is that the drafter considers the sub-contractors are familiar with all the terminology and abbreviations that he/she writes or translates. According to Besaiso et al. [25], this belief is incorrect since the readers of an engineering document of a contract or tender are almost engineers not schooled in law to understand the legalistic language of the contract or tender. Further, although they are engineers, it is ordinary to be unacquainted with the technical terminology, codes, specifications, and abbreviations of all engineering disciplines. More critically, Egypt's engineers and its sub-contractors are native Arabic speakers. Hence, including English words/idioms in the tender documentation or literally translating them into Arabic will make the documents inapprehensible to them. In consistence with this analysis, Besaiso et al. [25] justified the FIDIC clauses' unclarity, because they have been written utilizing very legalistic language. Additionally, Koc and Gurgun [15] revealed that employing infrequent engineering terminology to all disciplines and too many abbreviations are among the readability risks of the contracts, causing disparity between the contracting parties. This analysis informs the drafters of the sub-contracting's tender documents and their managers of a significant fact: not every term or abbreviation they add to the tender documentation provides ease-of-reading for the sub-contractor. This can, however, increase his/her fuzziness and incomprehension risks.

For addressing the terminology-related issues, Table 5 highlights that utilizing everyday words and abandoning employing legal language by the drafters are warranted to limit the presence of legalistic terms in the tender documents. Further, when it is essential to point to an engineering term in the tender documents, it should be frequent to all disciplinarians wherever possible. Similarly, the necessary clauses of the referred-to code or specification and the definitions of the utilized abbreviations must be attached with the tender documentation package. Moreover, any English words/idioms have to be translated into understandable Arabic phrases. Indeed, all of these anti-measures contribute to providing the sub-contractor with comprehensible terminology, supporting the highly needed aspects in any construction documentation, comprising clarity, readability, and understanding.

The above-mentioned analysis and discussion bring a detailed insight about the readability issues in the sub-contracting's tender documents by categorizing them into structural and presentation-related problems, lengthening and repetition-related problems, text-related problems, and terminology-related problems. The accuracy of this classification stems from involving the issues of the similar nature under the same group, depending on their descriptions and impacts on the readability for the reader. To date, it is believed that such framework has not been realized in any of the prior literature. This classification provides a significant implication for enhancing the drafters' and academics' knowledge to obtain an accurate description regarding the pivotal sources of the readability problems in a construction document. This study, additionally, in view of the top-eight frequent issues of the readability in the sub-contracting's tender documents, introduces another classification to benefit the developing countries generally. Relying upon investigating whether these

eight issues are highly ranked risks in the found peer researches of Malaysia and Turkey, a hierarchy of three levels has been developed. The top of the hierarchy comprises RI2 and RI4, representing the issues impacting the readability in all the developing countries. Level two points to the issues present in 50% of the developing construction markets, including RI3, RI5, and RI8. Level three is the least critical one because its issues, i.e., RI1, RI9, and RI12, have 0% in terms of their occurrence as critical readability problems in Malaysia and Turkey. This hierarchy contributes to afford an initial classified checklist of the issues obstructing the construction documentation's readability in the developing economies, serving as the bedrock for helping the drafters and academics in those countries to define their associated readability problems.

### **6. Conclusions**

This study contributes to answering two questions raised frequently in the construction community: "what are the readability issues in the sub-contracting's tender documents?" and "what are the measures for enhancing the readability in the sub-contracting's tender documents?". Building on applying the CAA to real documentation of 34 tenders of the sub-contracting arrangement in Egypt, 14 readability issues have been extracted. Further, through examining the prior works of readability, the corresponding anti-measures of the specified issues have been allocated. Subsequently, the soundness of the reached results has been confirmed by arranging face-to-face discussions with three experts. By determining the FA of the readability issues within the tender documents, "poor presentation of the format of the tender documentation", "sentences and clauses are too long and complicated", "spelling and grammatical errors", "abstractness or vagueness of words or sentences", "using controversial phrases", "repetition of provisions or clauses", "poor illustration of procedure or process", and "listing conditions that are not related to the tender scope" have been specified as the top-eight most frequent issues in the sub-contracting's tender documentation. These eight issues have then been compared with the outcomes of the found peer researches of Malaysia and Turkey. The findings of the comparison highlight that "sentences and clauses are too long and complicated" and "abstractness or vagueness of words or sentences" are severe issues obstructing the ease-of-reading and understanding of the construction documents in the developing countries. Relying upon discussing the identified readability issues, they have been categorized into four pivots, including "structural and presentation-related problems", "lengthening and repetition-related problems", "text-related problems", and "terminology-related problems". This classification, along with the other outputs of this paper, benefits the drafters and academics to obtain an accurate description regarding the possible pivotal sources of the readability problems in a construction document.

As in all studies, this research has limitations. First, since the readability issues have been drawn from the documents of 34 tenders of the sub-contracting practice in Egypt, replicating this research in the future by increasing the sample of the tender documents is recommended. Second, given the readability issues have been simply ranked in terms of their FA, relying upon applying the CAA to the documentation of the assembled tenders, the findings derived from these ranks should be viewed with caution until verifying these ranks. This can be realized in future research streams by involving the readability issues in a questionnaire and exploring the experts' perspectives regarding their frequency, severity, and criticality. Third, as the findings of the paper have been verified by three experts, surveying more practitioners in the future can enhance their reliability. Fourth, within the context of Egypt, which is a developing country, the study outcomes have been realized. Accordingly, its results, particularly in terms of the ranks of the readability issues, are limited to Egypt only. This is owing to the conclusion derived from the current paper that the most important issues of the readability are contingent upon the context of the country. Fifth, in this study, the readability issues have been classified into four dimensions by involving the issues of the similar nature under the same dimension, depending on their descriptions and impacts on the readability for the reader. Thus, validating this

classification in the upcoming research directions, utilizing the analytical techniques of the Exploratory Factor Analysis, the Principal Component Analysis, or the Cluster Analysis, is important to refine its precision.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** All referenced data exists within the paper.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
