Flesch-Kincaid Reading Scale

[KoKoa_B]

I think I'm posting this in the wrong area. But it has to do with writing so here goes!

This bothers me.

I've always used Microsoft Word for writing and I remember when, after you did a spellcheck, another box would appear, showing you all sorts of nifty stats from total number of sentences to characters used. Another stat was the Flesch-Kincaid readability grade. Back then it bothered me a lot that my writing was never graded anything above 7th-8th grade.

Over the years, I just accepted it. Then tonight (today, this morning; whatever), I finally took a look at how the scale came up with readability levels. And it made me roll my eyes.

There's an equation it uses based on the number of words in each sentence and how many syllables each word has. In other words: the lengthier the sentence, the higher the work will appear on the scale.

I know that this site is for adults. I also know that, as writers, although we state that we write for ourselves, we do always have an intended target audience. But seeing that this is basically creative writing that we're doing... would it make sense for any of our work categorized as university/college level readability?

If you're writing an essay or a thesis, I understand completely. I also understand the need to be the almighty wordsmith you were born to be.

I just feel that if you're given the "dreadful" 7th grade readability mark, then it's actually a compliment. That means that the average 7th grader can comprehend what you wrote. And if a 7th grader can read it, an adult should have no problem whatsoever understanding!

What irked me was a topic on another site that asked people to post their readability grade. Well... the comments in that thread was what really irked me. Because only two or three people actually understood what the scale took into account to dish out that grade and tried to tell the others. Just because it states that you write on a 7th grade level doesn't mean that your book is geared towards 7th graders. Or that you're an idiot if you write on that level. It simply means you can write stories that are comprehensive to anyone with a middle school education and up!

Nope. Everyone ignored them. One person even recommended that it may not be something to brag about that your writing is university level when you're writing a chicklit. That you might want to go to a more reliable tool, like Hemingway, White Smoke, Grammarly or Pro Writing Aid to get more extensive help; to cut out excessively long sentences.

*Sighs* Does it matter to you how your writing is rated according to this and similar scales? I know that I need a lot of work done to my stories (thank you, Hemingway app in letting me know that I'm the Adverbs Queen... -____-) but I have no problem now in knowing that a thirteen year old understands my stuff!

[pittwitch]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was mandated to use the scale to evaluate reading materials for my students. I tossed it in the trash. Newspapers don't make the grade. The writing therein rarely moves past fourth grade. Ignore it. It's useless.

[CL Mustafic]

Did you say that you can run it in word? How do you do that? I think it's a bunch of crap but it would be interesting to see...

[pippychick]

When I used Word, I used to run the spellcheck mostly to find and eliminate passive sentences, and to check those stats, because I didn't want them to get very high.

IMHO, in fiction, if you want a reader to follow the storyline and characters, it's really important to be easy to read.

But.. having said that, I kind of think it's important whatever you're writing. I mean "A Brief History of Time" is a great book because it's easy to read and comprehend, and so it lets the reader in. Instead of wading through it, you can relax and let Hawking tell you cool secrets about amazing things.

There are exceptions. Out of curiosity I checked a website to see what some classic authors score like (some of Oscar Wilde's are quite low), and Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass was at the top, but that's different, because it's like reading someone's soul. Robin Williams springs to mind here, ranting about measuring poetry. Whitman's score is a failure of the equation.

Wow.... that's a startling conclusion. Maybe I should always have aimed high.

[BronxWench]

Did you say that you can run it in word? How do you do that? I think it's a bunch of crap but it would be interesting to see...

When you do a spellcheck in Word, there's an Options clickbox at the bottom of the spellcheck window. Click that, and you'll see a list of things you can activate Under the second section, there's a checkbox for readability statistics.

[KoKoa_B]

Did you say that you can run it in word? How do you do that? I think it's a bunch of crap but it would be interesting to see...

Anything before Word 2010, I want to say, it was automatically shown after you did a spellcheck. But now, as BW said, you have to go through the options and select if you want readability stats to appear after a spellcheck.

I'm a simple person and I like simple things. That includes my reading. I don't want to feel that I need a dictionary nearby in order to read a story!

And dafdes is right: there are exceptions. I expect a book on soul searching or explaining how the universe is connected to the chi in our bodies to have a readability of college-level (I totally made that up; I have no idea if that's such a thing...)! But, a vampire/werewolf story? Nah.

Or any fictional story for that matter.