April 27, 2005
Readability
I took
the readability test (found via
Ann Althouse). Here are my results:
Gunning Fog Index 7.49
Flesch Reading Ease 72.29
Flesch-Kincaid Grade 4.70
This means that my blog is written at anywhere between a fifth and eighth grade reading level. I am actually quite proud of that result. My mission here, as in my legal career, is to keep the prose short, sweet, and simple.
I can certainly keep up with pretentious and wordy authors. After all, based on the generalist nature of my college education and subsequent career, I have both a wide and deep vocabulary. Learning how to read and write in Latin and German also blessed me with a working knowledge of truly good grammar.
But none of that is an excuse to "show off" and make my writing unreadable.
How does your blog score?
Posted by: JohnL at
10:06 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 141 words, total size 1 kb.
1
I checked this a couple of days ago, I think when it showed up on Volokh Conspiracy.
Gunning Fog Index 7.70
Flesch Reading Ease 75.66
Flesch-Kincaid Grade 4.62
For me, a low score is more a side effect of some training. If there are several possible words to explain something, I will nearly always pick the simpler one.
Posted by: owlish at April 28, 2005 10:26 AM (sBj9U)
2
Was it Strunk and White who recommended picking the shorter Anglo-Saxon word to the longer Latinate one whenever possible? Whoever did, it's good advice.
Posted by: JohnL at April 28, 2005 09:46 PM (gplif)
3
Professionally, it probably is good advice, at least until an editor wants more high-falutin language in a paper or something. Writing, I would like to be able to make conscious decisions about my language, and even though I've got a ridiculous vocabulary [even though I can't spell worth a darn] it isn't really under my direct control.
Posted by: owlish at April 28, 2005 11:54 PM (QiOeU)
4
Gunning Fog Index 7.98
Flesch Reading Ease 75.51
Flesch-Kincaid Grade 5.01
...obviously I need to work more on living up to my blogname...
Posted by: LDH at April 29, 2005 12:28 PM (bqPDz)
Hide Comments
| Add Comment
Comments are disabled.
Post is locked.
15kb generated in CPU 0.1045, elapsed 0.1697 seconds.
58 queries taking 0.1563 seconds, 167 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
