I don\u2019t know about you but I take writing for granted.\u00a0 I learnt to do it at school and bar a bit of guidance when I was at uni I\u2019ve never really thought about techniques for writing properly.\u00a0 So when I was offered a place on a \u2018business writing\u2019 workshop I wasn\u2019t too sure what to expect.<\/p>\n
Now, having spent the day with a guy who\u2019s job is technical writing I\u2019m almost embarrassed about how little I know \u2013 and how much there is to learn.\u00a0 For example, I had no idea there was a way of measuring the readability of\u00a0text.\u00a0 It had never occurred to me that there might be a way of scoring how easy a document is to read.<\/p>\n
There are a few different readability<\/a> measures out there, but the one I learned about today was based on the Gunning-Fog Index<\/a>\u00a0(its not quite the same).\u00a0 In effect it works out a score from the number of words, sentences and complex words.<\/p>\n This formula gives you a score that you can assess your writing with and compare with other text.\u00a0 A good measure would be to compare text with that of a news paper for example.<\/p>\n Another new discovery for me today (and I feel a bit stupid about this one) is that newspapers have a specific, and consistent, level of readability.\u00a0 This level is matched to their subject matter and reader demographic.\u00a0 Here in the UK, the Financial Times<\/a> has an index of ~41 (as measured with this method) and the low end tabloids drop to something like 22.\u00a0 The Guardian<\/a> has an index of ~34, as does the Independent<\/a>.<\/p>\n As the formula is based on two factors \u2013 sentence length and percentage of complex words \u2013 texts with the same index scores could still be very different to read.\u00a0 For example anyone who has read the Guardian and the Independent will know they\u2019re very different papers.<\/p>\n This difference is down to the tone of the writing.\u00a0 From what I saw today a 2:1 ratio of average sentence length to the percentage of complex words seems to give a good natural tone.\u00a0 Too far in either direction and the tone either becomes too simplistic or too \u2018wordy\u2019.<\/p>\n So what use is all of this then?\u00a0 Well being able to measure the readability and\u00a0 tone of things you write should help target the piece to your intended audience.\u00a0 If yon know who will be reading your doc, and even the individual sections within it, you can work the writing to best get your message across.<\/p>\n Whilst I’m sure all this is all pretty basic stuff and based on my own interpretation and assumptions, I thought it was a fascinating subject.\u00a0 I wish I\u2019d thought about it before today to be honest!\u00a0 All in all it was an interesting day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Having spent the day with a guy who\u2019s job is technical writing I\u2019m almost embarrassed about how little I know about the subject…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[217,216,215],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home","category-work","tag-readability","tag-technical-writing","tag-writing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Index = (Total Words \/ Sentences) + 100(Complex Words \/ Total Words)\r\n\r\n Total Words = The total number of words\r\n Sentences = The total number of sentences\r\n Complex Words = The number of words with three syllables\r\n or more, excluding those ending with 'ed'\r\n and 'ing' and counting pro-nouns only\r\n once.<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
\n\n
\n Average Sentence Length<\/td>\n % of Complex Words<\/td>\n Readability Index<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 18<\/td>\n 16<\/td>\n 34<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 20<\/td>\n 14<\/td>\n 34<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 22<\/td>\n 12<\/td>\n 34<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 24<\/td>\n 10<\/td>\n 34<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 26<\/td>\n 8<\/td>\n 34<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n