Readability

One of the ways people demonstrate their level of education is by using a wide vocabulary. Indubitably, polysyllabic effusiveness epitomizes eruditeness, but it makes your writing very hard to read. If your writing is too hard to read, it will decrease the chances that someone will finish reading what you wrote.

Readability is a measure of how easy or difficult it is for people to read what you write. There are two tests used to measure readability: the Flesch Reading Ease test, and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level test. Both tests use the ratio of words to sentences, and the ratio of syllables to words, to score the readability of written content; resulting in text that contains short sentences with short words scoring as easy to read, whereas text that has long sentences with long words scores as hard to read.

For example, "The cow ate a cake" would be considered very easy to read. "The voluptuous bovine greedily ingested a delectably frosted confectionary," would be considered very hard to read.

The result of a Flesch Reading Ease test is a score between 0 and 100, with a higher score meaning text is easier to read, and a lower score meaning text is harder to read. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level test yields an education level, with a 5^th grade reading level being easy to read, and a university graduate reading level being the hardest to read.

Returning to our previous example, "The cow ate a cake," has a Reading Ease score of 117, and a Grade level of -1.8, which indicates a kindergartener can read it. "The voluptuous bovine greedily ingested a delectably frosted confectionary," has a Reading Ease score of -46, and a Grade Level of 22, indicating you would need a PhD to read it.

To get the readability score of something you have written, you only need to copy and paste what you wrote into an online Flesch Reading Ease or Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level calculator, with some calculators giving both scores at the same time. Additionally, document editors such as Microsoft Word have readability calculations built in.

As a general rule of thumb, if you want what you write to be easy to read to a wide range of adults, you should aim for around an 8^th or 9^th grade reading level. When writing for business professionals, you should aim a little higher, but try to go no higher than a 10^th grade reading level.

The exception to this rule is jargon that is specific to an industry, profession, field of study, or problem domain; as jargon will tend to score poorly on readability tests but is actually quite readable to people who are familiar with the often-obscure terminology.

For example, lawyers use jargon such as, "Jurisprudence," "Exculpatory evidence," "Declaratory judgment," "Interrogatories," and "Habeas corpus;" which are very difficult for a general audience to read, but are common terms easily understood in the legal profession.

When deciding on the readability of your writing, there are three concerns that should be kept in balance: meeting the expectations of the medium, being appropriate for the topic being discussed, and adapting to the writing culture of your organization.

Generally speaking, the mediums of text messages, emails, and documents have increasing requirements of readability.

As text messages tend to be written in a hurry with only your thumbs, most people are perfectly fine with, "Meet us downstairs," instead of, "Our compatriots shall endeavor to rendezvous forthwith in the mezzanine."

Business emails tend to be more formal, but they also tend to be read quickly on a phone, so they should be around an 8^th grade reading level.

Business documents tend to represent you as a professional as well as your company, so they should generally not be less than a 10^th grade reading level but might also easily pass a 12^th grade reading level depending on the complexity of the material covered.

While these ranges are not set in stone, they can serve as a useful guide, such as reminding us not to title a quarterly earnings report with, "We did good."

When discussing different topics, there tends to be a different acceptable level of readability, such that casual, lighthearted topics tend to be written at a lower grade level than formal, serious topics.

For example, an email congratulating a colleague for winning the silliest Halloween costume contest can be written at a 5^th grade reading level, where an email announcing a series of cost reduction measures should be at a 10^th grade or above reading level.

Dialing readability to topic is important, as inappropriately using a wide vocabulary with complex sentence structure may come across as condescending to your peers, earn you the reputation of being a show-off, or even have you accused of using a thesaurus to appear smarter than you are. To avoid these pitfalls, try to use the minimum readability that is appropriate for the topic being discussed.

Adapting to the writing culture of your organization requires that you are exposed to writing from your colleagues to figure out the expected average readability for each medium and topic.

For example, emails sent within a tech startup might have an average of a 6^th grade reading level, but emails sent at a multinational financial institution might have an average of a 12^th grade reading level. In the case of a toy company, a company handbook might be written at a 6^th grade reading level, but for a military subcontractor, a company handbook might be written at a 12^th grade reading level.

If you are new to a company, it would be wise to carefully review as many writing samples as you can, to get a feel for what is expected and appropriate, as you do not want to come across as too stiff at a toy company, or too casual at a financial institution.

By adjusting the readability of what you write to be appropriate for the medium, topic, and writing culture of your organization, you should find that you have a warm, open, and friendly writing style when you are writing casually, and a thoughtful, intelligent, and professional writing style when writing more formally. In this way, people will know your education not by the breadth of your vocabulary, but by the ease with which you adapt your writing style to be the most effective for any given situation.