Measuring your readability

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20873433.post-1141928475880408832006-03-09T18:20:00.000Z2007-02-15T12:02:56.776ZMeasuring your readabilityHow readable is your work? No, it isn’t a trick question. Readability is fast becoming a vital part of written communications and one that you may be tested on when pitching for work. In the USA, many organisations are required to ensure that documents aimed at the public are readable. But how can this be measured? Readers may recall the Fog index – where Fog stood for “Frequency of Gobbledygook”. This was devised by the American Robert Gunning, and indicates the effort it takes to read and make sense of any written text. The Fog Index (FI) is calculated by taking the total number of words and dividing it by the total number of sentences. To this you then add the number of “hard words” divided by the total number of words, divided by 0.4. Hard words are those composed of three syllables or more. This is where the FI is tricky as you ignore words with three or more syllables if they are proper nouns, compounds like thirty-two or words in which the third syllable is the sound caused by '-es', '-ing' or ' -ed'. If you still reading this far you have probably noticed the major flaw with the Fog Index – it’s too complicated. Enter the Flesch Reading Ease Index, which is fast becoming a standard for readability. This is defined as being equal to 206.8 - (s + 0.85w), where s equals the average number of words per sentence and w equals the number of syllables per 100 words. The object is to get as high a Flesch score as possible with 90-100 being regarding as “Very Easy”, 80-90 “Easy”, 70-80 “Fairly Easy” and 60-70 “Standard”. Anything between 50-60 is defined as “Fairly Difficult”. You shouldn’t really score less than this. Attempts have also been made to equate the Flesch score with reading age, with 70 – 80 equating to about 12 Years. Don’t laugh –the average reading age for the whole of the UK is supposed to be about nine according to Bath University. Such a reading age requires a Flesch index of more than 100, while the average reading age of internet users is about 14 (Flesch 60-70). The great thing about the Flesch Index is that MS Word can work it out for you. Go to Tools>> Spelling and Grammar>> Options and ensure “Show readability statistics” is checked. Then, when you do a complete spelling and grammar check the Flesch reading will be displayed. Oh, and this feature scored 60.7 if you are counting. You can get too hung up on Flesch Indices. But if you are writing for the general public it is a good guide as to how effective your prose really is.Steve Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03564402221894277279noreply@blogger.com