How Readable is My Blog?

Readability tests were first developed in the 1920s to determine the suitability of books for American students at a certain age, or grade level. An early form of the test was developed by Dr. Rudolf Flesch, author of Why Johnny Can't Read, in the 1940s. J.P. Kincaid modified the test based on work with Navy inductees' understanding of their training manuals. They jointly published their work on readability levels in 1975.

The use of reading level algorithms help determine he readability of any content and are only a rough guide, as they tend to reward short sentences made up of short words. They also do not take into account spelling or grammatical errors.

Gunning-Fog is a rough measure of how many years of schooling it would take someone to understand the content. The lower the number, the more understandable the content will be to your visitors. My blog came in at a 14.32, which is just under the 15-20 range provided to academic papers.

The Flesch-Kincaid, is also a rough measure of how many years of schooling it would take someone to understand the content. This site graded in at a 10.26.

Flesch Reading Ease is an index that rates the text on a 100-point scale. The higher the score, the easier it is to understand the document. Authors are encouraged to aim for a score of approximately 60 to 70. This site came in at a 46.14

This excercise was more about having an interesting thing to do on a Friday than it was to change my approach to blog writing.
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