The Flesch Reading Ease test. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level test. The Gunning Fog Index. The Coleman Liau Index. The SMOG Index. The Automated Readability Index. All are designed to show the level of education necessary for readers to understand a passage of written English.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? I mean, after all: getting your message across to the widest possible audience is what marketing is all about. If you could know in advance with greater certainty that your message posed no serious obstacles to reader comprehension, you’d be in clover, right? Well, hold on there a minute.
In this Age of Unbelief, even believers want the assurance of scientific validation. Tests like these are part of a trend to quantify anything and everything – even that which was once understood to be unquantifiable. We take comfort in numbers. Yardsticks. Testable phenomena. Repeatable results.
The tests I’ve listed above all use mathematical formulas to assess readability. For the most part, they count the number of characters in a passage, the number of words, the number of sentences, the average number of characters per word, the average number of syllables per word, the average number of words per sentence, and so on. The lower the numbers, generally speaking, the higher the readability for the greatest number of people.
I know from my professional associations that most writers feel as I do about these tests: we distrust them. Advertising and marketing firms tend to look on them warily as well. Why? Because, in spite of what their creators and advocates maintain, the tests aren’t accurate. Nor could they be.
Nothing so complex as “readability,” or “reader comprehension,” can be reduced to a set of numerical constructs. No mathematical equation, no arbitrary assignment of numerical values, can tell you unequivocally what readers are, or are not, taking away from something you’ve written.
Readability, simply put, is governed by too many variables. And many of those variables can never be known with confidence, precisely because they are unquantifiable.
Aside from basic intelligence, education surely plays the most significant role in readability. But all kinds of social/psychological factors also come into play. The length of words and sentences? Yes, that too has an effect. But many of the most familiar words, words that even less-educated readers recognize, have three, four – sometimes more! – syllables. A one-syllable word might score better on a Flesch test, but it wouldn’t be as apt for the audience. Beyond that, there are times when only a long sentence, well-constructed, can accurately and coherently convey an idea. To split that long sentence up would be to muddy or destroy the relationship between various components of the thought being expressed. Result? Reader confusion.
Now, I don’t say readability tests are completely without value. They can alert a writer to wordiness. And writers are always best advised to keep copy brief. Especially when writing for mass audiences.
A handful of paragraphs looks friendly. Short sentences read well. Monosyllabic words pack a punch. They’re just not always the most expressive way to communicate. Attempts at the kind of brevity these tests promote – especially by beginning or unskilled writers – often leave copy wanting. The text may be short. But it shortchanges readers because it lacks the detail that brings color and clarity; that inspires and motivates.
In the end, it’s experience that serves as a far better guide to readability than any numerically based readability test. Experienced writers and marketers know how to address different audiences; they know what engages and motivates people of different ages, in different professions, at different social levels, with different interests and inclinations. They know because countless times over their copy’s been tested in the fires of the marketplace. They’ve seen what doesn’t work. And they’ve seen what does – as evidenced in growing customer bases and greater sales, among other signs.
If numbers have anything to do with the readability of marketing copy, these are the numbers that count.
