Re: Flesch???

[Ad absurdum per aspera <jtchew -at- CSA3 -dot- LBL -dot- GOV>]

>What is the Flesch method, and what does the figure mean?
>Eg, my Word processor said I was rated 90 on the Flesch scale after
>finishing a novela.

Let's see.  Are we still talking about erotica?  No.  So I
guess it must be the Flesch readability score.  It's one of
several attempts (the Gunning Fog Index is another) to quantify
the (im)penetrability of your writing.

These matters, mostly discussed in technical-communication
circles, don't seem to have gotten as much attention lately as
they did in the early- and mid-80s.  Perhaps it's because they
aren't exactly rocket science:  they all guide you toward the
use of smaller and fewer words in shorter and simpler sentences.
Strunk and White would, I trust, approve.

Some editors or managers abuse these scores the originators of the
metrics, as far as I know, uniformly caution the user about
reifying the subjective and quantifying the qualitative.  Note
also that they do not account for fluency at all; one seasoned
editor of my acquaintance referred to the abusers as "Flesch
peddlers" and said that reading an aggressively readibility-
optimized piece was like "riding down the railroad tracks on a
Yamaha."  Finally, they do not and cannot account for problems
in comprehension that stem from the subject matter itself.

I recall reading that either Flesch or Gunning was hired by the
government in the late 1940s to improve the income-tax forms, and
soon concluded that their problems stemmed not from readability
but from the complexity of the underlying rules. Hopefully it
won't literally take an act of Congress to improve *your* writing!

These scores do give you a broad indication of whether your
writing is easy to read.  Just take them with a grain of salt
(especially in artistic writing) and don't try to read too
much meaning into small differences in scores.

The manual for your word processor ought to contain at least a
brief discussion of what the scores mean and how to interpret
them.  If not, zap me by E-mail and I'll see what I can dig up
in the literature.

--Joe
"The pallid pimp of the dead-line/The enervate of the pen" -Robert Service