Blogging at a Grade 9 Level
Via Crof, here’s a readability analysis tool that assesses your website at the touch of a button. Here are the results for this site. Apparently I’m averaging 16.5 words per sentence, and am running at a shameful 32% passive setences. Improvements, I was thinking, will have to be made.
Unfortunately, their explanations of what all those numbers mean are pretty obtuse: “The Coleman-Liau Formula usually gives a lower grade than Kincaid, ARI and Flesch when applied to technical documents.”
November 23rd, 2004 at 1:47 pm
http://www.readability.info/index.cgi?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rickgebhardt.net
My results are very similar to yours, but I have a lot less content on my main page for the algorithm to go through. Interesting site, but it is ambiguous in detailing what the scores mean.
November 23rd, 2004 at 2:15 pm
Darren wrote: “am running at a shameful 32% passive setences. Improvements, I was thinking, will have to be made”
LOL.
Do note that the calculator doesn’t know how to deal with bulleted lists. It’s telling me I have 75 words in some sentences. It’s probably doing the same with your link round-ups.
November 23rd, 2004 at 5:16 pm
Both Crawford and I linked to readability.info earlier this year, with analysis of additional sites, though it’s a link worth repeating.
November 23rd, 2004 at 5:50 pm
The link I really need is to MemoryRefresher.com…plus some tips on how to remember it! Thanks for the reminder, Derek.
November 23rd, 2004 at 9:17 pm
Here’s what I got when I submitted my blog:
Error: your URL must begin with ‘http://’
:-)
November 23rd, 2004 at 11:29 pm
Meh, automatic tools for readability and grammar are watering down the artistic merits of writing.
Just my $0.02.
November 24th, 2004 at 2:44 pm
Yikes. After reviewing the readability of my site, I now see that I need to put more effort into improving my grammar!
I, too, had passive sentences in the 34% range.
November 24th, 2004 at 3:43 pm
I don’t think automatic tools are to blame. When I was in journalism school 13 years ago, I had to learn how to calculate the Fog index by hand. I got my hands on an automated tool the next year and have forever been thankful for the extra time I now have!
November 26th, 2004 at 1:18 am
I submitted some writing and my passive writing score was 53% - whatever that means. I tried finding a few places to help explain it all but my google-fu evaded me. So I can’t tell you if my writing skills suck or not. *sigh* But i did find it interesting all of the various ways to analyze it. thx for the links