Readability Formulas
Why were they developed?
What do readers look like?
Types of Formulas

Flesch Reading Ease

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level

Automated Readability Index

FOG

SMOG

The Cloze procedure
What affects readability?

Layout and formatting

Word choice and sentence length

Visuals

Attractiveness

The 7 C’s
What do the formulas measure?
(what is claimed)
--Number of syllables in a word
--Number of words in a sentence
What causes poor readings?

Numbers

Complicated names

Multi-syllabic words

Addresses

Long sentences

Complex sentences
To improve results:

Spell out numbers or run the checker
without the numbers

Bulleted lists

Simpler sentences

Shorter words

Reduced punctuation

Checking sentence by sentence
Are they any good?