The Readability Issue

Anybody who makes a living communicating through the written word would’ve heard this little whisper while he or she was thumping away on a keyboard:

Just how readable is this?

It’s a simple enough question – and legitimate as well – but can there be a definitive answer?  It’s difficult for an author to gauge the readability of his own work because he’s been too close to it to recognise the rough spots. His mind, reading what it knows to be there, will for the most part read effortlessly and get the impression that the writing’s as smooth as Drambuie. So, how can an author be sure he’s as readable as he wishes to be?

Do try this at home – or at work, if that’s where you write:

a) Read aloud. If you stumble over a tongue-twister or become breathless with a sentence as long as the Indus, mark out the offending parts for revision.

b) Give your work to your favourite beta reader and ask for feedback on readability.

c) Get online and run your copy through any program that tests readability. Here is a link: http://read-able.com

Among the few programs that test readability, the Flesch-Kincaid Index is the most popular. This gives scores for “Reading Ease” and “Grade Level”, with scores for one test correlating inversely with scores for the other. In other words, the more readable your writing is, the lower the student grade level it can be understood by. For example, if the Reading Ease score is 60, the writing can be read by 17-year-old Americans. Reader’s Digest has a readability score of 65; TIME magazine, 52; and the Harvard Law Review, the low 30s.

The Flesch-Kincaid Index analyses writing with mathematical precision, taking into account the average number of words per sentence and the average number of syllables per word. Long sentences with polysyllabic words make for heavy reading, and vice-versa.

The FK Index is all that matters, right?

Wrong! A writer might use small words and short sentences and yet be so disorganised as to leave his reader feeling like he’s labouring through sludge with a millstone around his neck. Conversely, a writer may spin long, sinuous sentences with multiple polysyllabic words and still carry his reader with him. It all depends on the writer – and, of course, the mental age and maturity of the reader. Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way begins with a 599-word sentence. Marquez’s Autumn of the Patriarch is packed with Nile-sized sentences that run into pages. Both would get minus scores on the FK Index, but no mature reader would argue that either writer isn’t readable.

The FK Index is ideal for gauging the readability of documents aimed at specific age groups: application forms, prospectuses, inter-office memos/bulletins/newsletters, brochures, and advertising copy, for instance. If a brochure aimed at corporate elites scores an 80 on the FK Index, it’s probably too simple to appeal to the literary palates of that particular group. The language used would have to be upgraded to bring the score down to, say, 50.  

Fiction and readability

Some editors want to “dumb down” fiction to make it readable, and some writers like to engage in pyrotechnics. What an intelligent reader expects, I expect, is the middle path. He wouldn’t want the writer’s voice to be sanitized to the point that it sounds like Dr Seuss, and nor would he wish to fill his brain with prose turgid enough to give him an aneurism. In the final analysis, it’s the writer’s call. I, for one, would err on the side of creative freedom, and then tone down wherever necessary. It’s the “first shoot and then aim” tenet that I’d follow. And, of course, I’d refer to Flesch-Kincaid purely out of curiosity.

Incidentally, this article scored 63.5 on the FK Reading Ease test. It should be easily understood by 15 to 16-year-old Americans.