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I have the following sentence in my research paper:

The maximum obtainable gap would be a measure of how difficult the system is to control.

However, I was told that the last part "how difficult the system is to control" doesn't sound right.

I am trying to paraphrase only this last part so that the meaning stays exactly the same. For ex:

The maximum obtainable gap would be a measure of difficulty of the system's controllability.

But, the word "controllability" has special meaning in control engineering, and readers may be confused.

Can you please suggest me any other paraphrasing variation that will not change the meaning and does not use word "controllability"? Paraphrasing of the whole sentence is also possible, if there is no way to change only the ending of the sentence.

Azor Ahai -him-
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Lee
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    The first version is a lot better than the second. I don't see an issue with it. Examples online include "The Standard Deviation is a measure of how spread out numbers are" and "Latitude is a measure of how far north or south someone is from the Equator". – Stuart F Jul 28 '22 at 09:08
  • @Stuart F Though established styles are still insisted upon in ... well, many establishments. Perhaps this is considered a bit informal. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 28 '22 at 15:30
  • "the difficulty in controlling the system." To my ear it's the word how that causes the sentence to sound informal as might happen in an elementary classroom. – shawnt00 Jul 28 '22 at 16:24
  • "would" is slightly non-idiomatic to me (depending on the larger context); however your sentence as written is fine. – Azor Ahai -him- Jul 28 '22 at 17:48

4 Answers4

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It is only needed to add the pronoun "it" and rearrange the terms.

  • The maximum obtainable gap would be a measure of how difficult it is to control the system.
LPH
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You can also use measure as a verb which will make your sentence more concise:

  • The maximum obtainable gap would measure the difficulty of controlling the system.

I guess for academic writing, "how difficult the system is to control" sounds too explanatory, so more concise ways of expressing the same are preferred.

fev
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"The maximum obtainable gap would serve as a measure of the system's tractability."

tractable: capable of being easily led, taught, or controlled (Merriam-Webster)

Dan
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Is the reader more interested in the difficulty or the gap? If the former, I suggest leading with the difficulty, like so:

"The difficulty of controlling the system would be measured by the maximum obtainable gap."

This is a short list of alternatives to "be measured by": be [positively] related to; be [positively] correlated with; be a function of;

This is a variation that avoids the clunkiness introduced by "be": "The difficulty of controlling the system would vary with the maximum obtainable gap."

DesdeCuando
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