Can you measure how well or badly something has been written?
Good English is about producing writing which is readable. This page critically examines two systems which have been suggested as ways of attaining such a goal.
Flesch
To work out the readability (according to Flesch) of a piece of text, use the table below (printed if you wish) to make the following calculations.
| number of words | a | ______
| | number of syllables | b | ______
| | number of sentences | c | ______
| | syllables per word (b/a) | d | ______
| | words per sentence (a/c) | e | ______
| | syllables per word (d) multiplied by 84.6 | f | ______
| | words per sentence (e) multiplied by 1.015 | g | ______
| | f plus g | h | ______
| | 206.835 minus h | readability (%) | ______
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The Flesch test's weaknesses are that it:
- requires a lot of counting, including that of syllables -- difficult to do without moving one's lips
- involves lengthy and arcane calculations (to three decimal places)
- gives an air of scientific precision to a matter which is by its nature subjective and personal
- encourages short words and sentences and, thus, a staccato style
- takes no account of whether the ideas in the text are well-linked
- may (like the Gunning fog-index) have been intended as a practical joke.
The very complexity and, more seriously, the deficiencies of such word-counting systems show that a different means is needed to judge whether a piece of English communicates well, hence the Good English project.
Orwell
In his Politics and the English Language, George Orwell advises against the use of:
- long words
- passive verbs
- foreign and technical words
- words which might be cut
- popular figures of speech.
These five commandments, all of them negative, are easier to implement than statistical methods, but they effectively suppress much of a writer's repertoire. Some concepts can only be expressed with long words and some of the synonyms which a good writer must use to avoid repetitiveness can be polysyllabic. The passive can be a welcome relief from active verbs and, if you are writing about another country or a technical subject, it is quite acceptable (and more economical) to use specialist vocabulary as long as you define it. Too much cutting brutalises language (as does the use of short words and sentences) and, provided that they are not over-used, similes, metaphors and well-worn phrases give language colour.
As with the statistical methods, Orwell's rules ignore the importance of linking ideas in text. It is this need to provide a narrative flow which we at Good English believe is one of the keys to the elusive prescription for a style which communicates well. Another key is, we believe, meter, a characteristic not commonly associated with prose.
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