I have to do a science experiment for school (just like last year and the year before)  

I kinda want to do it in Computer Science.  
My idea right now is the effect of different fonts on a reader's speed. Basically, I'll have a webpage that displays a short paragraph in a random font. Volunteers will read the paragraph, and click "Done" when they are finished. They will have to answer one or two easy comprehension questions, just to make sure they actually read the paragraph. If they get the questions right, their scores will be logged in a database. Each volunteer will probably have about 5 different paragraphs to read. A volunteer will have the same font in all 5 paragraphs. There will be about 5 or 10 fonts, so one volunteer gets 5 paragraphs of Times New Roman, another volunteer gets 5 paragraphs--the same words, but different font-- of Helvetica, etc.

My questions is this--which fonts should I use? Basically, I want one or two from the serif family (as defined by CSS), a couple from sans-serif, courier new or another monotype font, and a cursive and fantasy font. Any suggestions? I don't want fonts like Wingdings   but there should be some diversity.

I know this is an ..unusual question, but I'd appreciate any responses. Thanks!  

it's kind of hard...
If they read the same paragraph, 5 times with different fonts.... they'll only actually read the paragraph once. The rest of the times they'll be skimming it.

If I give them different paragraphs for each font, I would have two "independent variables" which is not allowed  

Sounds like your Computer Science class is a lot easier than mine. That a high school project or a college project? anyway, I think two fonts from seriff and two from san-seriff that look completely different would be a starting basis. I would take the easiest to read from each (Times New Roman and Arial) and then look for two of the hardest to read. then try the fonts at regular and then at italic. That gives you eight to play with. Do keep in mind that all users computers don't support all font types (everyones not computer-geeks like us ).

Hehe, I knew you are in middle school but I would have never guessed it until you told me the other day.

xXx like this font! Thanks for the suggestions...  

What about haveing them read one fixed paragraph in the same font all the time. This way you have a set speed for everybody with the same font and same paragraph. Then you have them read another paragraph whihc will stay the same but use different fonts. You have your controlled value, the one paragraph (in words per minute) then you have your one variable of the second paragraph. If you are writing the parapgraph you may want to try to use the same words.

Hi mussavcom,

I am going to take a completely different tactic here that others.  Rather than suggesting specific fonts, I would suggest looking at the links I provide at the bottom of my post in order to determine the fonts to use.

The main point is that if you put down a font and that person's computer doesn't have the font, they will not get the font you are using anyway but a font installed on their system.  So, you could put down Verdana or Garamond, but end up with a default sans-serif font instead.  Thus, the fonts you use must be graphical representations of the font rather than html typed text in order to be consistently the same font for each individual.

Now, my links below are to determine on both Macintosh and MS computers which fonts are most typically installed on a computer.  The reasoning behind this would seem to imply that if a font is more likely installed on a computer, it is also more likely to be read or used by people more frequently, and more likely to be easy to read and understand on a computer.  So, basically, pick fonts that at least 85%-95% of people have already installed on their computer as well when you make your choices.

Microsoft fonts:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/default.asp

Macintosh fonts:
http://www.codestyle.org/css/font-family/sampler-MacResults.shtml

Please note that the Macintosh fonts' page is also handy to see what the fonts actually look like for non-Mac people as well.  It is a great site to determine what fonts to use for a website, and I used it to pick my H1 and H2 headers on my website.

As always, I hope this it helpful.

What if you focused on the ability to skim?

Had a whole slew of mumbled text.. and has different things in iteg:

That cat has a brown head. lcd monitors are are green with blue tails.

(complete nonsense) and then had the user try and skim for certain info: eg:

What colour tails do lcd monitors have?

Then time how long it takes the user to find it.

Have 5 different paragraphs all the same length and same confusing size .. you could even just change the scentances around and their values:

The lcd monitor is brown with green tails The cat has a blakc head. (But you would have this thing like half a page - a full page.

Time how long it takes for the user to read it.

The different reading speeds wouldn't be a problem because you just have to take the slowest reading speed and then divide all the other times by that time and you've got the % faster/slower.

You can mathematically cancel out the whole extra variable of the reading speeds.

Does that make sense?