Reflection Memo

Readability Tests: Keeping the Audience in Mind

About Technical & Professional (T&P) Writing

For years, college students have been trained to write academically (i.e. essays). They’ve written to hit a page or word count and, consequently, have resorted to BS writing. Writing nonsense sentences, redundant writing with rephrasing and restating what they’ve already said, just to hit an elusive number. No more!

Technical and Professional (T&P) Writing is NOT Academic Writing.

Readers of T&P are BUSY! They are managers, co-workers, clients, customers, and other busy people who don’t have time to waste wading through lardy/fluff writing. They have better things to do and, honestly, they don’t want to read what you’ve written – so keep documents clear, concise, and precise.

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How Documents are Read

Technical & Professional readers don’t read every word of a document. They skim. They use headers. They hunt for the information they want/need to make decisions or answer a question.

They read T&P documents like a newspaper. They hop around the page and/or document and you, as a T&P writer, always need to keep the reader in mind. (See image below which visualizes how people read.)

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IMAGE KEY Red = most time

Yellow = average time Blue/Purple = least time

Flesch–Kincaid Readability Tests

Flesch-Kincaid readability tests are designed to indicate how difficult a passage in English is to understand. There are two tests: Flesch Reading-Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level.

The tests use algorithms to determine the number of years of education a reader would need to understand a document.

It is these two tests that both Microsoft Word and popular writing helper Grammarly use to determine the readability of a document.

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How to Do a Readability Test

You can check your document’s readability in Word by following these instructions: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/get- your-document-s-readability-and-level-statistics- 85b4969e-e80a-4777-8dd3-f7fc3c8b3fd2

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Please note, you will have to go through spelling and grammar checking before the Flesh-Kincaid score shows up.

If you are in a newer version of Word and/or on a Mac, you will need to click on and go through every grammar/spelling note before the Readability Test results show up.

Troubleshooting the Readability Test

If you get a pop-up screen like this (an “Editor” screen), it is NOT readability results. You still need to click on and work through anything that doesn’t have a checkmark on it. (This one has grammar issues that need to be addressed.)

Once fixed, then you’ll get a “Readability Statistics” screen with averages and

Readability results.

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Flesch-Kincaid Scores

In the Flesch Reading-Ease test, higher scores indicate materials that are easier to read; lower numbers mark passages that are more difficult to read.

Here’s a table to make the everything a bit easier to understand:

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Flesch-Kincaid Scores in the World

Average Scores

• Reader’s Digest magazine = 65 → 8th & 9th grade

• Time magazine = 52 → 10th-12th grade

• Harvard Law Review = low 30s → college graduate

• State of Florida law requires insurance policies MUST have a score of 45 or greater → college level

• Average for Harry Potter series = 72.83 → 7th grade

• Highest Score: Philosopher’s Stone = 81.32 → 6th grade

• Lowest Score: Order of the Phoenix = 65.88 → 8th & 9th grade

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Still Struggling with Readability Test?

If you still can’t figure out how to complete a Readability Test, talk to your instructor or Google for help.

If needed, your instructor can offer a “work around” from the Microsoft Word version…but only with permission.

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