One-Minute Communications Tips Archive
January 2009
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Improve Your Flesch
Readability Score
Your Flesch
Reading Ease score in Word depends on the number of words per sentence and the
number of syllables per word. Of the two, the second carries greater weight. The
lower your syllable count, the higher your readability score.
Short words
usually have fewer syllables than long words, so using big words reduces your
score.
As an example,
take "Mary had a little lamb" (7 syllables). It has a Reading Ease of 83.3. But
"Mary possessed a diminutive lamb" (10 syllables), with the same number of
words, scores only 32.5.
To further
illustrate the influence of short words, let's add a few to that second
sentence: "Mary had a diminutive lamb in her possession." The Reading Ease rises
to 50.6, even though it’s a much worse sentence.
If your primary
goal is to achieve a high readability score, use short words instead of long
ones. Just be sure your substitute word precisely conveys your meaning.
© Arun Sinha, Access Communications. Access Communications is a marketing
communications and technical writing firm based in Stamford, Connecticut, USA.
Sign up for Access Communications's One-Minute Communication Tip at http://www.AccessConsultingInc.com.
Once a month, you'll receive an actionable idea or technique on an aspect of
business communications, distilled into about 150 words.
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