I usually don’t assume I’m being judged. This is an excellent quality to have in terms of one’s own emotional well-being, although it is not always the best thing for society.
So imagine my surprise to discover I am being judged, remotely and in great detail, and it’s for my own good. Well, poo!
It’s this thingy that shows up in my new blog dashboard. The dashboard is the place where I pull new blog posts out of my…let’s say glove box, and monitor my fuel levels, and hope the check-engine light doesn’t flash on. Things have been going along fine until I noticed a red warning flag. My Readability needs work.
My what?
I had to look into this. I assumed, naturally, this had something to do with font size, or contrast, or something. Although I had been thinking the new site was a sight more readable than the old one. But no. It turned out my writing was not up to snuff. It was a few notches below snuff. In fact, I had, on a recent post about the Supreme Court, a readability score that would not do at all, according to the Flesch Reading Ease Test. Flesch is, it says here, a “readability framework.” You know what I find unreadable? Sentences with “readability framework” in them.
The idea is you should write, ideally, at an eighth-grade comprehension level to ensure that 80% of adults will understand you. Among the things that can help you in this regard is using words that don’t have too many syllables. Syllables are detected (roughly) by number of vowels in the words. One-syllable words are the best. To illustrate, a good eighth-grade comprehension-level sentence would be “Miss Gulch Sucks Horse Dicks.” I think if you can manage to misspell some of the words you’re even more relatable.
Well, there’s something to it. We’ve already learned that at least half the adult population of the United States does not know what “socialism” means.
So evidently my literary offerings are automatically sent through a vocabulary Cuisinart and pressed into a formula to produce a score. There are many formulas. The formula for the one being inflicted on my content—Flesch—is:
206.835 minus 1.015 times the total number of words divided by the total number of sentences minus 84.6 times the total syllables divided by the total words. I am not kidding. It’s right there in Mr. Flesch’s own oeuvre, “How to Write Plain English.” I’m still not kidding.
My Readability score offered helpful examples of where I went wrong.
You do not use enough subheadings, although your text is rather long. Try and add some subheadings.
“Try and?” All right, I’ve never once used a subheading. And my text is not rather long. In fact, I have labored to keep all my posts somewhere between 500 and 800 words, and if they threaten to overwhelm my audience’s willingness to plow through, I whack them into two separate posts. I needed to do this, for instance, when I found I had too much to say about whale poop. I don’t even use semicolons much, because I don’t want my readers to have to pause a little as they roar through. If they do need a rest, they can look at the pictures on the way down. That’s what they’re there for.
Only 19.2% of your sentences contain transition words, which is not enough. Use more of them.
But…but…but…
No, those are conjunctions. Transition words are words that tell you what’s coming up next. Like “More importantly,” or “For that reason.”
Oh. Like, for instance, “sarcasm alert?” Thank you, that is ever so helpful. Without transition words, people might lurch into the next sentence with no warning whatsoever.
The text contains 3 consecutive sentences starting with the same word. Try to mix things up!
Yes. In fact there are three that start out “The fetus.” In your spare time look up repetition as a rhetorical device. Sorry! Did I lose you on those two four-syllable wordwads?
15.1% of the sentences contain passive voice, which is more than the recommended maximum of 10%. Try to use their active counterparts.
15.2% of the time advice like this is fraught with suckiness. I’m writing about the current Supreme Court. I’m using passive voice to be polite. If I used active counterparts, things could get out of hand in a hurry.
Okay. I understand this all has to do with Search Engine Optimization. And that if I want to get more readers and make more money I should straighten out my act. But I want to attract readers a different way. A slower, more satisfying, less efficient way. And…wait, what was that about money?
While reading this, I said “Oh, for fucks sake” so many times I lost count. What terrible advice! Please delete this app at once, if you can! Or at least ignore it. I think that I can speak for everyone who reads you regularly, that one of the reasons we read you is that you DON’T talk down to us, assuming that we read on an eighth grade level. And you manage to be funny about some serious things. If I don’t know the meaning of a word you use, then I use my dictionary app, which helps me to learn a new word.
Now I know why, when reading some “helpful” articles on various things, it all seems so stupid and obvious, like they are writing for the mentally challenged. They are. The average American.
Oh I ignore it. It can just run along in the background. It keeps it off the streets.
Well, what it all boils down to is this: you aren’t writing for 80% of adults. More’s the pity. By all means, ignore all advice that suggests you should lower your standards. What if 80% of adults attempted to RAISE theirs?
I think this has something to do with Search Engine Optimization. Or something.
I laughed aloud 4.3 times while reading this piece.
And I did just now.
I wrote for a professional local “place blog” reporting on town meetings for a few years. It was on the WordPress platform and graded my prose on Readability also. I was always unreadable too! No wonder journalism has been so dumbed down in recent years. Everything is geared toward the lowest common denominator!
I’ve changed my own writing over the years, but I’m the boss of me.
I was too late to comment just after mimimanderly:
WHAT SHE SAID.
(Three one-syllable words should rate highly.)
Or maybe the “tool” would prefer:
ME AND HER THINK THE SAME.
That’s good ritin’, isn’t it?
‘Tis!
I heard writing for third grade level is the norm. Sigh. I am delighted I now write in another language…cursive…that no one will be able to read! Keep on doing as you are. I look for your posts every day.
I used to write in cursive, and then I bollixed it all up, and now I can’t read my own writing. This is a fact.
Having gone to a Catholic elementary school, the nuns were very tough about penmanship. At one time, I could write cursive beautifully. My writing got progressively sloppier afterwards, to where I now print everything. When I have to sign my name to something, I inwardly curse. (Maybe THAT’S why it’s called “cursive?”
Oh I have retained a recognizable signature. Not a legible one, but it’s about the same every time.
I like the secret language of cursive. But it is lamentable that students now will be unable to decipher ancient manuscripts…… those written by hand, say in 2001. A spacey odyssey indeed. ….. oh and keep up the inappropriate language choices. ….
I just sent in an essay about cursive to the Christian Science Monitor. Haven’t heard back yet but I won’t put it on Murrmurrs unless they say no.
Ah! They accepted it today. It even mentions “diarrhea.”
Murr, of course your essay was written in cursive, right? Maybe that’s why it took so long for them to respond.
I flunked the Flesh test years ago.
You are Flesch Flushed.
I was approached some time ago to teach an adult school class on dinosaurs. I’d done the previous semester for a different township and so fired off my course summary to the prospective school. I got a reply which asked me to phrase my summary as if I knew no more about the subject than the students and that we’d learn together. That made no sense to me, so I declined.
I’m glad you’re taking the high road on this. Whoever or whatever flagged your blog has no concept of what makes it readable. And enjoyable.
For the record, this inspired yet another “Oh, FFS” out of me.
I think it’s probably a good thing that 80% of American adults can’t quite make out what I’m saying. It’s probably why I’m alive today.
I will admit there have been a couple times here that I’ve wondered if your writing was a bit brainier than normal to weed out the Neanderthal types like me. Plus I laughed a little too hard at that Miss Gulch statement! But I think you’re an impressive writer, and I especially liked that Supreme Court piece!
Don’t try to weasel out of this readership, Doug. You’re in but good.
Hey, if it’s a question of money, I’d be glad to pay you to continue writing just the way you do. It just chaps my nethers to think that there are innocent young writers out there who think the machines can tell them how to write. Refuse to submit to those contemptible mechanical imbecilic overlords!
I think they mean well. And I’ve been ignoring people for decades.
I’m sure you’ve already realised you need to ignore Mr Flesch. Your readability is just fine, even to this low-educated person. I even manage to understand some of your more complex posts; if I can figure out what the content is about, I’m good. If I don’t understand I will usually say so. Did I use the semicolon correctly?
Yes you did. You might notice I use very few semicolons, myself. My father used them in nearly every sentence, and although he was a great writer, he got a predictable rhythm to his prose that I no longer like. It sounds/feel archaic. I do use them sometimes.
So…it might have been the piece about whale excrement that tipped you over the guide line? Well, shit! Pink shit, at that!
A “flocculent plume!”
I’m sure your readers are judgier than any mindless algorithm. We love your “long” words. Your word play and your snortiness.
Besides, the minute something tells you to “try and”, they are done. The only thing you can ” try and” is fail!
I can verify that I, for one, am very judgmental. And I love Murr’s writing. She enlightens AND entertains. Hard to get both of those at once. Also why I watch Colbert, Oliver, and Maher to hear about what’s going on in the world. Things are so bad that I need a chaser with my news.
And any “grammar cop” that says “try and” instead of “try to” is dead to me.
Thanks guys! Yeah, I said guys.
I love you and think you should be our Laureate of Something… (but, wait, you already are! — as your frequent and adoring commenters demonstrate). And as for the Flesch Test for the flesh: that would be the cosmetic industry’s injunction that we should all (especially women) do our best to remove any evidence that we have skin pores… or indeed eyebrows made of (yuck, can you believe it…!) HAIR!!!!! All applause, joy and wonderment to you (and readers, all).
Thanks! I cannot even imagine having too much hair in my eyebrows. Mine are down to suggestions from my forehead.
Oferfucksake. You use ‘flang’ more often than ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’. What’s their problem?
They might like flang.
As the Billy Joel song goes, we love you just the way you are.
Why thank you! It’s the only way I know how to be, so that’s handy.
Another great post…but, if you want an “algorithm”, this is my favorite!
from Wikipedia
“The Elements of Style is an American English writing style guide in numerous editions. The original was composed by William Strunk Jr. in 1918, and published by Harcourt in 1920, comprising eight “elementary rules of usage”, ten “elementary principles of composition”, “a few matters of form”, a list of 49 “words and expressions commonly misused”, and a list of 57 “words often misspelled”. E. B. White greatly enlarged and revised the book for publication by Macmillan in 1959. That was the first edition of the so-called Strunk & White, which Time named in 2011 as one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923.”
go ahead…call me old-fashioned!
I just mentioned Elements Of Style in a facebook thread *yesterday.* I’m a fan.
Doesn’t mean you’re not old-fashioned.
I prefer to think of myself as forward facing old-fashioned! #progfash
At least the Flesch Reading Ease Test suggests you write to an eight-grade reader’s level. The last newspaper I worked for told us to aim everything to a fifth-grade reader! Let’s face it. ‘Simplicity’ has worked for many. I expect the former president was very popular partially because he spoke in simple sentences and used the emotional rhetoric of the third-grade playground. Oh, and he wasn’t Black. Just a thought; maybe your ‘readability’ would improve if Pootie was a white bear? :^D
Stop that! Stop that right now!
It is most unfortunate that Rudolph Flesch is well-known for his silly readability thing, but hardly known at all for his books “Why Johnny Can’t Read” and “Why Johnny STILL Can’t Read,” in which he detailed how, because of greed, politics and stupidity, people in positions of influence made sure that useless methods of teaching reading became standard procedure. Did you know that it got so bad that there was even a 20-year period during which any elementary school teacher attempting to use phonics in California would be fired?
Once again… Oh, FFS! They taught phonics in the catholic school I attended, and I LOVED it! I also loved that they taught prefixes and suffixes and root words and what they meant. That way you could suss out what a word meant, if you knew this. I think that they underestimate the intelligence of children. These things that I learned in grade school have stayed with me and served me well. But once kids get to a certain age, you can no longer teach them anything. Hormones take over. I kind of wonder if they deliberately inculcated stupidity in our populace. Stupid people are easier to influence.
Sounds like you had an excellent education! And as for your last two sentences there — yes, absolutely!
You know what? I don’t know what Phonics is. I’d have to look it up and I’m busy with a beer. Maybe that’s what I learned. I did learn some good stuff in English class but the bulk of my skills were jammed in by my father.
I’m going to assume you meant that, so: Phonics is learning the letter sounds first. As opposed to “look-say,” which tries to teach recognition of whole words without teaching the sounds of the letters first (Dick and Jane). Some kids can learn by the latter method; nearly all can learn by the former. Whatever you did, it went well, because you’re a terrific writer now. Whatcha drinkin’?
Oh I see. I was definitely Dick And Jane. I remember going up to the front of the class and sitting in a semi-circle with the teacher holding an enormous D&J book. I remember it because I was horrified that some of my classmates seemed to be able to read it and I hadn’t learned to read yet.
If you’re writing at 8th grade level, here are some simple words that 8th graders love: shit, fart, fuck, ass, snot…I could go on, but I suspect you may know more of these than I do. Keep on with your excrement! I love it.
I ain’t agin them words.
Readability???? This algorithm needs a sense of humor. I think you use just the right proportion of scholarly, poopy, and made-up words. Never let a critic, especially an automated one, cost you your voice.
Not to worry. I’m sure this is a valuable bit of information for somebody but I pick and choose my inspirations.
I didn’t know we were being Graded on our Blog Posts… Readability? I think I would likely fail, dismally, and I agree with the other Comment that we should never let a critic, especially an automated one, cost us our voice.
I didn’t take criticism well at all when I first started writing (2007, for real, after a good 35 years of writing down almost nothing). But since then I have gotten much more confident and I can listen to criticism all day long and pick out what makes sense to me and disregard the rest.
SEO—-savor every orgasm. Where’s the laugh meter on your writing analysis? Ignore and press on, multi syllables be damned!
SEO — That’s the only thing that has made me laugh out loud today. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!