Are your posts “readable”?


I’ve added a bit of mumbo jumbo to the edit-post form to show readability stats. The function shows word/sentence count and:

The Gunning-Fog index gives the number of years of education needed to understand the text. Short, plain sentences score better than long, complicated sentences. Based on words per sentence and “hard” words per sentence.

The Flesch-Kincaid index gives the number of years of education needed to understand the text. Short, plain sentences score better than long, complicated sentences. Based on syllables per word and words per sentence.

The Flesch index, usually between 0 and 100, indicates how difficult the text is to read. The higher the score, the easier the text is to read. Based on syllables per word and words per sentence.

This short post warrants the following scores so far:
Words: 123 Sentences: 10 Fog: 9.1 Kincaid: 7.0 Flesch: 67

These simple stats basically mean anyone in about grades 7-9 should be able to easily read this post.

It might be interesting to look back on posts you’ve written, click on edit, and see what scores these formulas calculate for your readability.

According to wikipedia, the formula is 50+ years old and is built into MS Office as well.

I promise not to get too fired up about linguistics, but I have been doing oodles of programming lately… and I am an English teacher, after all.

Now I’ve scored: Fog: 9.4 Kincaid: 6.5 Flesch: 69

Out.