Master Microsoft's 'Readability Statistics'

‘Readability’ is the term used to describe how easy or difficult something is to read. It might surprise you that an appropriate level for most corporate writing is Grade 10 (Standard 8); i.e. age 15-16. Did you know that most major newspapers, locally and internationally, are written at a Grade 6 level, while the Wall Street Journal is written at a Grade 12 level?

How can you improve the readability of your writing? Simplify, simplify, simplify. But luckily, you don’t have to monitor your own readability, because Microsoft Word does it for you. Here’s how to activate it:

1. Click on ‘Tools’.
2. Click on ‘Spelling and Grammar’.
3. Under ‘Options’, activate the text box that says ‘Show readability statistics’.
   
   (If you need to know how to do this using Microsoft 2007, drop me a line.)
   

Each time you run a spell check, the stats should be displayed and you can tailor the level of your text to suit your audience. The ‘readability statistics’ facility includes:

1. Counts: number of words, characters, paragraphs, sentences in the document
2. Averages: average sentences / paragraph, words / sentence, characters / word
3. Readability statistics: % of passive sentences, Reading Ease, Grade Level

When...

• the Passive Sentences percentage is higher than 15%, or
• the Flesch Reading Ease score is lower than 60%, or
• the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score is greater than 5-6 (for younger readers), 6-9 (for general readers) or 9-12 (for industry or technical readers),

… you need to look at your document again, with fresh eyes.

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