Have I really improved
Ever heard of Flesch/Flesch–Kincaid Readability Tests…
According to the wikipedia
"They are readability tests designed to indicate comprehension difficulty when reading a passage of contemporary academic English. There are two tests, the Flesch Reading Ease, and the Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level. Although they use the same core measures (word length and sentence length), they have different weighting factors, so the results of the two tests do not always correlate: a text with a higher score on the Reading Ease test over another text may have a lower score on the Grade Level test. Both systems were devised by Rudolf Flesch."
The first indicator Flesch Reading Ease decides how easy is to read a particular piece of writing- thus an indicator of the flow of narrative. The simpler the narrative, more logical the narrative… the higher the Flesch Reading indicator….
The second indicator Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level indicates what level of eruditeness is required to read a given piece of writing… thus a text which a fifth grader can read will necessarily be better than a text that requires a graduate to read, given the same content. Here lower the indicator, the better.
These indicator are at best empirical… and there is no rocket science behind them… therefore they should not be taken at a face value… they are indicative, but give very good results.
A random excerpt from my favourite book- Catcher in the Rye has a Flesch Reading Ease of 80.7 and Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level of 4.8, great isn’t it.
Similarly a random excerpt from Alchemist… has a Flesch Reading Ease of 73.4 and Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level of 6.6..
The idea being that a good book generally is simple to read and that one does not need to put a great effort to read them.
People tell me that over the time that I have blogged, my writing has become simpler and eloquent… is it just a compliment or a truth.
I tried to check myself with the above indicator. I applied these indicators on a three part series that I wrote in the initial phases of my blog… "WHY BLOG". The scores were Flesch Reading Ease of 34.9 and Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level of 12.
And then I applied the same indicators on the last three parts of my latest blog series on "AIMLESS WANDERINGS IN THE EGYPTIAN HEARTLAND". The scores were Flesch Reading Ease of 59.9 and Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level of 9.7.
There seems to be an appreciable improvement in my writing style… my writings have become easy to read and require a lower eruditeness to read… way to go. So after all these compliments were not way off the mark.
Before I part… if you want to check your scores… you can do it on MS Word. Type your pieces on MS WORD… go to tools… and then options… and in that Spellings and Grammar tab… check the SHOW READABILITY STATISTICS box and you are done. Check your spellings and grammar… after that is done, the readability statistics will automatically be showed.
According to the wikipedia
"They are readability tests designed to indicate comprehension difficulty when reading a passage of contemporary academic English. There are two tests, the Flesch Reading Ease, and the Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level. Although they use the same core measures (word length and sentence length), they have different weighting factors, so the results of the two tests do not always correlate: a text with a higher score on the Reading Ease test over another text may have a lower score on the Grade Level test. Both systems were devised by Rudolf Flesch."
The first indicator Flesch Reading Ease decides how easy is to read a particular piece of writing- thus an indicator of the flow of narrative. The simpler the narrative, more logical the narrative… the higher the Flesch Reading indicator….
The second indicator Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level indicates what level of eruditeness is required to read a given piece of writing… thus a text which a fifth grader can read will necessarily be better than a text that requires a graduate to read, given the same content. Here lower the indicator, the better.
These indicator are at best empirical… and there is no rocket science behind them… therefore they should not be taken at a face value… they are indicative, but give very good results.
A random excerpt from my favourite book- Catcher in the Rye has a Flesch Reading Ease of 80.7 and Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level of 4.8, great isn’t it.
Similarly a random excerpt from Alchemist… has a Flesch Reading Ease of 73.4 and Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level of 6.6..
The idea being that a good book generally is simple to read and that one does not need to put a great effort to read them.
People tell me that over the time that I have blogged, my writing has become simpler and eloquent… is it just a compliment or a truth.
I tried to check myself with the above indicator. I applied these indicators on a three part series that I wrote in the initial phases of my blog… "WHY BLOG". The scores were Flesch Reading Ease of 34.9 and Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level of 12.
And then I applied the same indicators on the last three parts of my latest blog series on "AIMLESS WANDERINGS IN THE EGYPTIAN HEARTLAND". The scores were Flesch Reading Ease of 59.9 and Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level of 9.7.
There seems to be an appreciable improvement in my writing style… my writings have become easy to read and require a lower eruditeness to read… way to go. So after all these compliments were not way off the mark.
Before I part… if you want to check your scores… you can do it on MS Word. Type your pieces on MS WORD… go to tools… and then options… and in that Spellings and Grammar tab… check the SHOW READABILITY STATISTICS box and you are done. Check your spellings and grammar… after that is done, the readability statistics will automatically be showed.
2 comments:
To comment on improvement one need to compare the present with the prvious status, which I am not sure of.Only one thing I can say after regulary going through your bolg that, through your writing you are able to hold the attention and imagination of the reader (at least me !!)Good Luck and keep going.Looking forward more from you.Subrat
Thanks Subrat
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