If you have not put the MS Word Readability Statistics to work for you, I guarantee you are going to be singing my praises for showing you this once you do.
Go into the Spelling and Grammar options, and check “Show Readability Statistics.” Choose your writing style and check all the boxes. You can uncheck them later once you start to recognize colloquialisms or if you stop caring about clichés. While you are still in the options, make sure the program is set to check spelling and grammar while you type, and to “check grammar with spelling.”
Here is the amazing part.
Open a document that consists of a few pages of text (sentences and paragraphs, please). Run the spell-check through to the end. You can ignore all the warnings because your poor spelling is not the subject of this exercise. At the end, you will come to the Readability Statistics. Focus on the second two sections — Averages and Readability.
The Averages section is self-explanatory. First, it tells you how many sentences you have got per paragraph on average. If this number is between 3 and 4, you are doing great. If not, you should reevaluate how you are using paragraphs. The other stats in the section are interesting, but more usefully analyzed in the Readability section.
In the Readability section, Word will tell you what percentage of passive sentences you used (these are bad). More important for this post is the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (“the scale”). This number represents the average number of years of school a person would need in order to read the text. The scale uses words, syllables, and sentences to calculate a text’s readability. If you edit ruthlessly, then readability will improve quickly. The first draft might measure out above 12, but you should aim through the revision process to get this number closer to 8.
I know that your average audience is going to have passed eighth grade, but even the most well educated people prefer to read succinct text. Most articles in the New York Times, for instance, measure around a 6 or 7 on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level scale. As an example, this post measures an 8.0 on the scale. If you understand your argument, you will be able to reduce the number of words you need to make it. Doing this as an exercise will also improve your writing style in general.
Write on… Kimberly
