More is Less

The number of words in a 10-K report has been climbing over time.
10-Ks are also using more redundant, boilerplate (used in 75% of other 10-Ks) and sticky words (repeated from prior year).
They are also getting less readable (compared to academic texts (COCA) and newspapers).
A lot of this has to do with growing SEC requirements (especially around risk factors, internal controls and fair value measurement).
Source: Great post on the topic worth a full read.