Great Resource - Readability Score

I was helping my parents with their freelance writing mill work and my dad told me about this tool he uses to make sure the article is at an 8th grade+ level- this helps you to meet your target audience in writing and can tell you where your own writing level is. I don't know how accurate it is but how cool is this?

The tool is here: http://www.readability-score.com/

Let me know how it fares :) I kinda put it in here to see what you guys thought of it  and if you find it's accurate or not.

Jerrico

just keep in mind the average adult reads at an 8th grade level so if you use too many big words, complex topics, etc... you may alienate people... I really have to hold back sometimes... just thought it was an interesting tool if nothing but entertainment :)

I also think that part of the problem is that content writers have been advised, from the outset, that their readers are poorly educated with a limited concentration span. Write short sentences, short paragraphs and do not use vocabulary which may intimidate the reader. If I am writing articles about furbys, or dolls houses, I will heed this advice because my article is pitched at both parents and children. 

However, if someone has landed on my pages about feminism, class conflict, sustainability or women as offenders, prisoners or victims, I will anticipate that they have a reasonable education- or they would not have been searching for the information. Maybe high bounce rates are also because we underestimate readers. If I'm sitting in on a Saturday night and want a good read, I wont be choosing an eighth grade book. 

Maybe we should alter our thinking and assume that many of our readers have a reasonable education, and we should pitch our articles at a higher level.

I like the way you think Catana, it goes along with how i raise kids, I never talk to them in baby talk and loathe when people say "mommy got you some yummies" when the kid is 5 years old and able to "learn" not be stunted by the whole talk to me like I ain't got no sense thing :)

You guys should hear me talking to my dog.

It's not even 1st grade level - it's some level back in a former lifetime. 

I'm with Hollie here.  I've never dumbed my articles down.  In fact, I aim to have as rich a vocabulary as common decency will allow.   It raises the standard across the board.

Plus, when someone put up Alexa stats on here, it highlighted that Wizzley attracts people with a college education.   I don't know what 8th grade is, but I'm assuming that it's not the equivalent to our colleges!

Catana, I'm with you. I always used adult vocabulary with my children. People were amazed at there vocabulary, and it really makes a difference in learning. Never talk to children in baby talk. Now, my dogs are a different story.

Oh I never used baby talk with my children, that's not what I meant. I meant that if I was writing for a younger readership I'd use age appropriate language. Similarly, for adults, which is why if I'm writing for adults I wouldn't pitch the article to someone in 8th grade. And yes, I sound like a complete moron when I'm talking to my dog. 

Brenda, I talk to my cats in English  big words and all- I discovered over the years you actually can train a cat and I trained them using words most people don't use in everyday language so it's pretty cool to say something astute with company over and see the cat take action. It doesn't always work but learning is always a matter of upgrading and redundancy not trying to enable kids to stay at the level they're at (like a kid, a cat remembers something with redundancy and recurrence).  Kids may not know what "literally" or "conspicuous" means but in the context of the sentence they know what your saying based on your body language they've come to read you anyway, so parents are highly cohesive to teaching kids higher vocabulary- and to watch a mom in a grocery store talk to a kid like they think he's barney rubble- kind of turns my stomach too.

This matched with the everyday language they hear at first and later recall faster when they know exactly what it means because it's familiar - that and it's really cool to be at a teacher parent night and hear your kid saying words other kids have to ask what it means but the teacher knows and using it correctly. I only have god kids (kids raised in a past relationship that I still call my own) that I've raised this way but I now have some courses i.e. verbal advantage and a few others that I can use to teach my kids the words, their roots, the story of their use, and the correct usage of it (this is an amazing course)... in this day and age if you don't prepare your kids to be prodigies or at least a step ahead of their peers, then your sending them into battle without shields. :)

This is getting off topic, but since you, Jerrico began the topic and then went a bit off with the cat thing - I will reply.

First, I do not have a college education.  It doesn't mean I am an idiot, but truthfully I have been learning new, and higher vocabulary all my life.  I prefer to read high level books and articles and I would not be interested long in the 8th grade reading level. 

I did not talk baby talk to my kids either.  They are little people and when parents treat them as if they are not capable of understanding "big words" it makes me cringe.

As far as training cats - yes!  I don't try to do this, but they do learn quickly and are definitely creatures of habit.  In fact, every time my stove timer goes off or the phone rings my cat will run to the kitchen - RUN - because she knows I will be getting up to go there to "take care of the noise".

It's amazing what you can accomplish with a laser pointer-  I always scurry them out of my office when I go to bed and they run under the sofa frustrating me, I bought a 3.00 laser pointer and now all I do is click it (the sound itself they love, then the laser) and "walk the cat" out of the room fast... they all follow. then I reward them with catnip to maintain the "rainbow and pot of gold at the end" habit around the pointer. No frustration since. :)

Jerrico_Usher: 03/06/2013 - 03:55 PM

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I bought a 3.00 laser pointer and now all I do is click it (the sound itself they love, then the laser)

Yup, they know that click sound...!!!!