Measure Your Readability

Do you help your readers understand by being consistent? After all, if you are consistent, they'll find you easier to read. In turn that means they'll read more and understand more. These are important considerations in all business writing projects.

It's not hard to develop consistency. You do that by checking your scores on a readability index, and doing it regularly. A readability index measures how easy it is to read and understand what you've written. Normally, it's measured in grades, as in Grades 1 through 12 in North American high schools. 

This article came in at 9.08 on the Flesch Kinkaid Grade level test. It should be comprehensible to a person with a Grade 8 education. Other indexes might give a different score, but generally they will be in the same range.

Fortunately, we usually don't have to go far to get readability tests. Many word processors include them, and if not, you can go online. Simply visit your favorite search engine and type in the words "online readability" or "online readability tests". You should find a number of them.

A good service or program will give you more than just a score. It will also give you information to help you lower the grade. This information includes average sentence length, average word length, and the proportion of passive verbs. That's important, because this information will help you bring down your score. Bring down the grade level by shortening sentences and replacing longer words with shorter words. For even more readability, replace passive verbs with active verbs.

You have lots of choices, and they'll all give you roughly the same score. Use the one that's most convenient, or best fits your writing aims.

Your target score will reflect the reading ability of your audience. For example, if you're writing for university grads, you can go higher than you would with children. If you're writing for a general audience, aim for Grade 12 or lower. A few grades lower would be even better, of course.

Once you've found a readability scoring program or service you like, use it regularly, to build consistency. If your scores come in too high, shorten sentences and shorten words until the score is where you want it. Over time, of course, you'll find it easier and easier to hit the grade level you need. At the same time, you'll be increasing your communication skills and helping your readers, too.