Sunday, August 06, 2006

What's your score?

No. Not your hotness score. That's what you first thought, didn't you? Shame on you!

woman reading

The score I'm talking about is your readability score. What's that you ask? Let me tell you: It is a score lets you know the approximate grade level equivalent of the writing on your website. Oooooo, lit major fun!

I found this over at Mom-101's blog. Of course, I have to do what I am told and she told her readers to check it out. Here is my score:

Reading Level Results

Total sentences: 676
Total words: 9042
Average words per Sentence: 13.38
Words with 1 Syllable: 6216
Words with 2 Syllables: 1626
Words with 3 Syllables: 781
Words with 4 or more Syllables: 419
Percentage of word with three or more syllables: 13.27%
Average Syllables per Word: 1.49
Gunning Fog Index: 10.66
Flesch Reading Ease: 67.07
Flesch-Kincaid Grade: 7.23

My take on all this? I think 13.38 words as the average per sentence is a little ridiculous. What am I doing? On the other hand, that Gunning Fog Index of 10.66? That means, according to the chart below, that I'm as readable as Time and Newsweek. But then apparently, Time and Newsweek must also have a grade level score in the junior high range? Hmmm... Maybe that's not such good company to be keeping.

Either way, this was a fun and interesting exercise. If you want to try it, click here.


Fog Index Resources


6 - TV guides, The Bible, Mark Twain
8 - Reader's Digest
8 - 10 - Most popular novels
10 - Time, Newsweek
11 - Wall Street Journal
14 - The Times, The Guardian
15 - 20 - Academic papers
Over 20 - Only government sites can get away with this, because you can't ignore them.
Over 30 - The government is covering something up

P.S. For Michelle, guess where this painting is? For the answer, click here.

3 comments:

Bea said...

This is such a fun thing to do, isn't it? I just came over here from Mom-101 because I was excited to find someone whose score was actually higher than mine! (You and Words on Water are the gold and silver medalists at this point, I think!)

I'll have to stick around and see what it is we're doing that your average sixth-grader just can't understand.

Mom101 said...

I for one am impressed. Also, is the bible really the same as TV Guide? I mean, the bible has all these smite and smote kinds of words. The TV Guide...not so much.

(And no, I was not yet born in '66. Almost, but not quite.)

Kristen said...

I write at a 5th grade level! WOOO!