Underneath each essay on this site (but not yet in the forum, unfortunately), you may have seen a box with some statistics in the last line. These are some figures for readability.

Readability analysis tries to measure how difficult a text is to read.

• The Flesch and Flesch-Kincaid methods use formulas based on the average number of words per sentence and the average number of syllables per word.
• The Gunning-Fog method uses a formula based on the average number of words per sentence and the percentage of ‘hard’ words (words with 3 or more syllables) in the passage.

Both the Gunning-Fog and the Flesch-Kincaid give a score that is the number of years of education needed to understand the essay. Informal writing may try for a score in the 7-10 range.

The Flesch score is a percentage. The higher the Flesch score, the easier the essay is to read.

One problem with these numbers in this site is that they include the essay question and some other info as well as the answer. If you want a more accurate figure, select only the essay and paste the text into Microsoft Word (you may have to change your Word Options to Display Readability Statistics).

Of course, these readability statistics were designed for native speakers of English reading in English. They can only give rough guidelines for learners of English as a second or foreign language. But try to keep your writing simple: don’t think that long words means better writing!

Have a look at some of these essay topics and check how readable they are, or aren’t…

agriculture childrencities co-educationcolleges communicationconsumer culturedevelopmenteconomy educationenvironmentessays familyfarming flights flying foodgovernment health ideasimages labour languageleisure media migrationmoney news old age parentspoverty relationshipsscience societyspending sport studyingtourism travel tuitionuniversity urban lifeviolence work

Acknowledgments and Links:

• You can find out more about readability statistics here (and check a webpage) at JuicyStudio.com
• This website at www.Online-Utility.org lets you copy-and-paste text for readability analysis
• Of course, Wikipedia has tons more here, about Flesch-Kincaid, and here, about readability in general.
• This site from timeatlas.com explains how to turn on readability statistics in Word (2003, 2007, 2010) and Google Docs.
• This site uses a WordPress plugin called FD Readability Statistics