2 replies to this topic

[Len]

What are readability tests?

wikipedia.org said:

Readability Tests are designed to indicate comprehension difficulty when reading a passage of contemporary academic English.

They help us tell how well the articles are, in terms of understandability, complexity etc. There are many methods and tools available to analyze the texts. Wikipedia has detailed description of all the readability tests. Following are some of the online tools to analyze texts:

1) http://www.editcentr...tral.EC/EC.html: It gives many test results, and even underlines complex words. The website also has the formulas written in Java language.

2) http://juicystudio.c...readability.php: Apart from the tests it also contains brief description about the methods and there index/grade meanings.

3) http://labs.translated.net/text-readability: This one uses another algorithm, and provides suggestions to improve the article.

In Google docs you can find these results in Tools > Word Count. There are three test results: Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade, Automated Readability Index.

What do you think about these methods and tools? Do you find them useful?

[abby]

Microsoft word also has these tests filed under tools.
I think that these tests can be useful as a guide, but they also have their faults. I personally use them at work with some frequency because part of my job is to create fact sheets that need to be readable by a wide audience, and therefore written at a 6-8th grade level. After a few years of academia, I have no idea what a 6-8th grade level looks like. If nothing else, these tests remind me to keep my sentence structures simple, an to avoid unnecessary big words.
The major issue that I have with these tests is that, based on my recollection (and please correct me if this is way off base), they assign higher points or grades based on longer words or words with more syllables. Sometimes big words are necessary, and if properly introduced and explained, are perfectly readable at a much lower level that these tests would suggest.

[iGuest]

Hi kids! You've probably all heard of Albert Einstein before. You may know that he was a scientist. You may know that he discovered something called "relativity" and has something to do with the equation "e=mc2." You may know that he looked kinda funny, and spoke with a German accent. You may not know any of this, but you will learn all about this amazing man in this article. You will learn about his character, or personality, and about his science. You will get to have a better understanding of relativity and you will know the meaning behind "e=mc2."To start off, think about science. When I say,"science," what pops into your mind? Do you create pictures of crazy-looking men in white lab coats speaking in funny German accents? Do you get images of dark laboratories crammed with bubbling liquids, curved glassware, test tubes, beakers and strange machines that gather electricity? Do you think of rocket ships and robots? Do you think about traveling into the past or the future? I'll bet at least some of these images come to mind. Perhaps you've seen these things on television or in movies, or read about them in books. These things are certainly all part of the world of science, but they are simply the results of science. Science is really more of a quest. Scientists are people who are questing to understand the world around them. Scientists are not crazy people who want to create death-rays that will help them to take over the world. They are not necessarily "nerds" who speak with high nasally voices, and who awkwardly knock things over. Scientists are really smart people who wish to know why things in the universe work.