Readability and Word Count
Two common measures of readability are the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level(FKGL) and the Flesch Reading Ease(FRE).
Both are calculated by counting the number of syllables, words and sentences in a piece of text. More accurate results are obtained with larger text samples.
WriteItNow calculates both the FKGL and the FRE. It can show these for a selected piece of text, a single chapter or all chapters.
Checking Readability with WriteItNow
Checking the Readability of a Story
[1] Go to the Overview Tab[2] Click on the Options button
[3] Select the 'Readability' option
Checking the Readability of a Chapter
[1] Go to the Chapters Tab[2] Select a chapter to check
[3] Click on the 'Edit' Menu
[4] Select the 'Readability' option
Checking the Readability of a Selected Block of Text
[1] Select the text to check[2] Click on the 'Edit' Menu
[3] Select the 'Readability' option
Improving Readability
Keep sentences short and get to the point. Ninety-five percent of people will understand a sentence of eight words having read it just once. Only 4% will understand a sentence of 27 words after a single reading. (Isbell 1979 "A guide to letter writing" - The Industrial Society, London).Most text is easier to read when long words are replaced by short words.
The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
This is a US Government Department of Defense standard test. It shows the average grade level needed to read a sample text.According to Audrey Riffenburgh (Riffenburgh Associates) Grade level equivalent scores are only accurate by plus or minus 1.5 grade levels. When you revise text so that the score drops from 8.2 to 7.5 it is not necessarily easier to read.
The Flesch Reading Ease Score
Rudolf Flesch developed the FRE. It measures the average sentence length in words and average word length in syllables. It produces a number between 0 and 100 that shows the difficulty of a piece of writing.A score of 0 is very hard to read and a score of 100 is very easy to read.
If some text is too hard to read for your audience, shorten words and sentences until you get the score you want.
Flesch tested the FRE on various samples and got the following results:
| Sample | FRE |
|---|---|
| Comics | 92 |
| Consumer ads in magazines | 82 |
| Movie Screen | 75 |
| Seventeen | 67 |
| Reader's Digest | 65 |
| Sports Illustrated | 63 |
| New York Daily News | 60 |
| Atlantic Monthly | 57 |
| Time | 52 |
| Newsweek | 50 |
| Wall Street Journal | 43 |
| Harvard Business Review | 43 |
| New York Times | 39 |
| New York Review of Books | 35 |
| Harvard Law Review | 32 |
| Standard auto insurance policy | 10 |
| Internal Revenue Code | -6 |
The FRE can be converted to an approximate grade using this table:
| Grade Level | FRE |
|---|---|
| 5th grade | 90+ to 100 |
| 6th grade | 80+ to 90 |
| 7th grade | 70+ to 80 |
| 8th to 9th grade | 60+ to 70 |
| 10 to 12th grade (high school) | 50+ to 60 |
| 13th to 16th grade (college level) | 30+ to 50 |
| College graduate | 0+ to 30 |