I don't know. I heard it doesn't really give your text an accurate reading level because it only counts
the number of words in a sentence and the syllables each word contain. It doesn't take the meaning of
the word, the age in which the average person should know the word, and how archaic the word is into account.
Doesn't take punctuations and sentence structure into account either.
In other words, it's just a test used to see if you can pronounce the word correctly. This is just something
I heard from a website and the equation it uses, but if you still want to use it, I think you want it
as easy to read as possible for the age group your writing to. Hope this helps. | DeUndrae [144] | 02/03/2009 |
The readablity test checks to see where you stand in reading level, yes? Some books I read have a lower
reading level than what's expected for that age group. Of course, reading tests don't really prove anything,
and a few pieces of writing from mine uses short sentences. That's another point I have to make.
If you write naturally with short sentences, then use short sentences. Use the vocabulary you normally
use too. I don't mean slang, but write as if you would speak to your parents or teachers. Reading tests
just see how hard a book is too read, and many books' reading levels aren't in their respective age groups
as I said before. Sometimes the test can kill your voice (personality) more than help it. Trust me: I
used to use it all the time. Everytime I used it I and gave my pieces to my friends and teacher, they
said they liked it, but they said it was boring at the same time. I asked my teacher why my pieces were
so boring, and she said, "You have no voice in your work. No personality. No individuality."
It was right then I noticed the flaw in readability tests.
I usually disregard reading tests because of that reason. I mean, I use short sentences when writing
and use one syllable, Anglo-Saxon words instead of long, Greek and Latin prefixed words. Does that mean
my book is dumbed down? Does that mean I'm stupid compared to other writers? Hardly! I just write in a
way that I can get my voice in.
If you do use the readability test, it can help, but more often than not it can kill your voice, and make
your prose boring. In other words, just be yourself. Hemingway used only eight thousand words in his entire
text, and that's about a sixth-grade vocabulary.
If you want a good book that can help you on voice if you're confused, I would recommend Finding Your
Voice: How to Put Personality into Your Writing. Trust me--it'll make your prose more interesting, and
you don't have to rely on the readability test all the time. Hope this helps! | DeUndrae [144] | 04/03/2009 |
This is my personal take on readability testing. The reading should be as simple as you can make it without
sacrificing meaning, style, and imagery. Don't sacrifice too much for simplicity because then the readers
won't get pulled in by dynamic sentences full of flavor. You can get all this flavor and still have the
reading level quite high (70's) for maximum reading skill exposure.
I think difficulty comes more from complex concepts the author writes about. Some stories have a very
specialized focus, such as computer hacking. Not everyone knows alot about computer hacking. The writer
can even make the sentences in the 70-80's range, but the subject might still be hard to follow. How well
does the writer describe what he or she is writing? That is were reading difficulty comes from, not the
Flesch-Kincaid reading test.
The Flesch-Kincaid reading score for the above writing is
Readability 64.37
Approximate grade 12.42
Now I'll say all that above in a more complex way, but still hold the same meaning.
Readability testing, such as the Flesch-Kincaid, offers writers a method to monitor the complexity of
the sentence structure within their writing, but does not evaluate the author's capability of expressing
their essential meaning to the readers.
The Flesch-Kincaid reading score for the above sentence is
Readability 8.15
Approximate grade 26.07
Basically, I'm saying it only measures your sentence structure. It does not truely measure the difficulty
of your writing. Reading difficulty comes from the how well the readers can grasp what was writen. | ruminate81 [73] | 04/04/2009 |