Wow – that is so interesting that presidential speeches are scored for “readability”. All of course in trend with the fact that politicians no longer lead but just try to get votes …

Thanks, D.L! I would add that this level of difficulty is fair enough in a scientific journal article, presumably aimed at a specialist audience.

Thanks, Claire! I suspect that the home-schooling text was written by teachers, and the “Advice for families” wasn’t …

Thanks, Audrey! Goes to show that explaining restrictions and all their exceptions and contexts of application is quite a challenge …

“The attack rates (proportion of the entire population who become infected) and case-fatality rates (proportion of those infected who die) and the implied mortality rate (proportion of total population who die) assumed for China under seven different scenarios are contained in Table 2 below.”
The above quote has been selected to demonstrate the ease vs. the difficulty of reading a particular text.

Words: 44
Flesh-Kincaid Grade Level: 11.1
Flesh Reading Ease Score: 34.9
Average Words per Sentence: 11
Average Syllables per Word: 1.9
Could be broken down into 4 sentences (more simplified).
Above: The reading level is a college student and is deemed as difficult to read as it is a high-level grade.

I looked at two very different texts from the NSW Department of Education website.
The first was part of a home-schooling guide for parents and carers, and provided instructions for teaching handwriting to a child of kindergarten age. It was very clear and easy to read, with short sentences and few multisyllabic words, and I wasn’t surprised to find that it had quite a high readability score.

Flesch Reading Ease score = 71.5
Flesch-Kincaid Grade level = 7.4.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uVSPghiGeeSLCgb_OfeQGnL81Z1Zb8bbA59ooJ5wxQ/edit#

The second text was part of a guide to NSW school students for term 3 this year, outlining rules for school attendance under the current COVID-19 restrictions. The target audience for this information would presumably be parents and carers from a range of different backgrounds and with varying levels of education and English literacy skills. It was surprising, then, that this was such a dense, wordy text – with sections that seemed unnecessarily complicated to me, such as:

“Where their symptoms continue beyond 10 days, students should provide documentation from their GP confirming their symptoms are typical for their condition.”

“All schools will be vigilant when implementing infection control, physical distancing and personal hygiene protocols to protect the health and safety of students and staff.”

https://education.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/advice-for-families

This text had a Flesch Reading Ease score of 48.8, and a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of 11.6 – much less readable than the home-schooling text available on the same website, and aimed at a very similar target audience.

The different levels of readability of these two texts might reflect the different circumstances in which they were developed: the home schooling guide was already in place before the current crisis, and seems to show a lot more planning and forethought than the COVID-19 attendance guidelines.

“What is the advice and rules on face masks?
At a national level, the health department said in advice published on 9 July that masks were recommended where community transmission is occurring and where physical distancing was difficult. In Victoria the premier, Daniel Andrews, made it mandatory to wear masks or face coverings – including scarves or bandannas – when in public in the entire state from midnight Sunday 2 August. There are a few exceptions: people with a medical reason and children under 12. Those who have a professional reason “or if it’s just not practical, like when running” are also exempt but they will be expected to carry a face covering at all times “to wear when you can”. Teachers will not need to wear a face covering while teaching, but students will. Teachers and students will need to wear a mask on the way to and from school.”
(https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/09/australia-best-face-masks-reusable-washable-cloth-mask-where-to-buy-how-wear-advice-reuse-for-covid-19-coronavirus-melbourne-victoria-vic)

– Characters per word: 4.8
– Syllables per words: 1.6
– Words per sentence: 22.8
– Flesch Reading Ease score: 56.5
– Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 11.3
The text is composed of many long sentences, which can be difficult to keep track of and can be fatiguing for the readers. The Flesh Reading score indicates that the text is fairly difficult to read. A score of 11.3 in the Flesh-Kincaid grade level indicates that the average students in 11th grade can read and understand the text.

Thanks, Alex! Good connection between readability level and audience.

Agree, Ally! In fact, linguistics should be part of the high school curriculum. Everyone needs to understand how language works!

I looked on the Australian government COVIDSafe app for a relevant update and found this link:

https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/western-and-south-west-sydney-testing-bzlit

The first sentence summarises some of the essential information:

“Anyone who lives or works in Sydney’s West and South West and has even the mildest of COVID-19 symptoms is being urged to come forward for testing, as mystery COVID-19 cases continue to emerge in the region.”

One interesting aspect of the article is they used a large number of quotes instead of crafting a direct readable message, perhaps to give it validity. As a result of that there are a number of difficult slang expressions which make it even more challenging to understand such as “breaking the back of this wave of transmission.”

Their urgent message could easily get lost, especially for those with lower levels of literacy. A simple direct message would have been so much more effective especially when people’s lives are at risk.

Words: 271
Characters: 1490
Sentences: 9
Paragraphs: 9
Sentences per Paragraph: 1
Words per Paragraph: 30.1
Characters per Word: 4.7

Flesch Reading Ease: 45.7
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 14.3

So, this text came out at 14.3 on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, meaning one would need a college education to be able to fully comprehend it and 45.7 on the Flesch Readability Score which is between difficult and fairly difficult.

For urgent public announcements, where many citizens lives could be severely impacted, it is highly problematic and unsuitable to use such complex language.

It is obvious going forward that there is a dire need for linguists to cooperate with the government to craft messages that are direct, simple and easy to read.

Word count: 262
No. of syllables: 453
No. of sentences: 14
No. of syllables per word: 1.7
No. of words per sentence: 18.7
Readability score: 40 – Difficult

I consider the sentences in this article are lengthy and one could lose the connection if not focused. According to the Flesh-Kincaid scale, the readability of this article is aimed at college students. I believe the way this article is presented corresponds to the target audience of this news network, as mainly college students or middle-aged persons with a high literacy level look for this type of content.

Thanks, Yuta! English media texts from outside the Anglosphere are often good examples of what can be done in terms of readability without sacrificing complexity.

Thanks, Peter, for looking up a broader range of readability tests! It’s a good exercise that teaches us not to trust our intuition when it comes to readability. For people like us – with a university education – it’s almost impossible to imagine what it’s like to read at elementary level as an adult. What comes closest is maybe the experience of travelling in a country where you don’t read the language (and then imagine no English signage and no English speakers to help you out …)