Journal: News & Comment

Wednesday, March 31, 2004
# 7:26:00 AM:

How easy are these words to read?

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A new online tool analyzes the readability (and explains the resulting numbers) for any web page (or Word document). Here's my score, compared to articles from some popular sites:

Index Penmachine NY Times PC World White House ESPN Nickelodeon Chomsky
Kincaid: 8.2 6.2 10.6 4.1 12.3 4.0 10.2
ARI: 9.0 6.2 12.1 3.7 6.7 3.5 11.4
C-L: 10.0 11.8 11.9 9.1 15.6 9.1 12.4
Flesch: 71.1 70.4 59.4 84.4 71.4 84.2 58.8
Fog: 11.2 8.9 13.3 7.6 15.7 6.2 13.4
Lix: 38.6/6 34.1/5 47.1/8 28.3/<5 39.3/6 28.3/<5 46.5/8
SMOG: 10.1 9.1 11.4 8.2 10.7 7.0 11.9

In the Flesch score, higher numbers are easier to read. In all others, higher numbers are harder. The Lix index includes a score, plus (after the slash) a "school year" number.

It seems that, on balance, this site is easier to read for the average person than something from PC World or Noam Chomsky, but harder than a New York Times article, a White House press release, or a page from the Nickelodeon cable kids' channel. It's about the same as something from the ESPN sports network, though I almost never write about sports.

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