Understand Me?

Ken AshfordBloggingLeave a Comment

Readability Results for this website, as analyzed by this website:

Summary Value
Total sentences 548
Total words 5,664
Average words per Sentence 10.34
Words with 1 Syllable 3,650
Words with 2 Syllables 1,176
Words with 3 Syllables 568
Words with 4 or more Syllables 270
Percentage of word with three or more syllables 14.80%
Average Syllables per Word 1.55
Gunning Fog Index 10.05
Flesch Reading Ease 65.11
Flesch-Kincaid Grade 6.75

So . . . it’s basically a 6th grade reading level of authorship, somewhat on a par with Time and Newsweek.

Read a more detailed explanation of the analysis below the fold.

Interpreting the Results

Philip Chalmers of Benefit from IT provided the following typical Fog Index scores, to help ascertain the readability of documents.

Typical Fog Index Scores
Fog Index Resources
6 TV guides, The Bible, Mark Twain
8 Reader’s Digest
8 – 10 Most popular novels
10 Time, Newsweek
11 Wall Street Journal
14 The Times, The Guardian
15 – 20 Academic papers
Over 20 Only government sites can get away with this, because you can’t ignore them.
Over 30 The government is covering something up

The following section describes the Gunning-Fog, Flesch Reading Ease, and Flesch-Kincaid algorithms for readability.

Gunning-Fog Index

The following is the algorithm to determine the Gunning-Fog index.

  • Calculate the average number of words you use per sentence.
  • Calculate the percentage of difficult words in the sample (words with three or more syllables).
  • Add the totals together, and multiply the sum by 0.4.
  • Algorithm: (average_words_sentence + number_words_three_syllables_plus) * 0.4

The result is your Gunning-Fog index, which is a rough measure of how many years of schooling it would take someone to understand the content. The lower the number, the more understandable the content will be to your visitors. Results over seventeen are reported as seventeen, where seventeen is considered post-graduate level.

Flesch Reading Ease

The following is the algorithm to determine the Flesch Reading Ease.

  • Calculate the average number of words you use per sentence.
  • Calculate the average number of syllables per word.
  • Multiply the average number of syllables per word multiplied by 84.6 and subtract it from the average number of words multiplied by 1.015.
  • Subtract the result from 206.835.
  • Algorithm: 206.835 – (1.015 * average_words_sentence) – (84.6 * average_syllables_word)

The result is an index number that rates the text on a 100-point scale. The higher the score, the easier it is to understand the document. Authors are encouraged to aim for a score of approximately 60 to 70.

Flesch-Kincaid grade level

The following is the algorithm to determine the Flesch-Kincaid grade level.

  • Calculate the average number of words you use per sentence.
  • Calculate the average number of syllables per word.
  • Multiply the average number of words by 0.39 and add it to the average number of syllables per word multiplied by 11.8.
  • Subtract 15.50 from the result.
  • Algorithm: (0.39 * average_words_sentence) + (11.8 * average_syllables_word) – 15.9

The result is the Flesch-Kincaid grade level. Like the Gunning-Fog index, it is a rough measure of how many years of schooling it would take someone to understand the content. Negative results are reported as zero, and numbers over twelve are reported as twelve.