Mark Morris, former speechwriter for the UK Health Secretary wrote this very entertaining blog post for gov.uk about it all. Guess what? They prefer to get their information in clear, concise, readable text too. You can also find it in legal writing (legalese), much of what’s written for medical professionals, and other texts intended for an educated audience. Fixing it up and converting it into beautiful plain English might be my not-so-secret pleasure. It’s a sort of jargon-filled, dense language, where sentences are allowed to take up 5 lines, and vagueness flows freely. When I worked in government communications, we’d call the more complicated communications ‘bureaucratese’. That said, improvements are thankfully happening across departments’ online channels with the DTA digital services standards. For this reason, government is one of the worst culprits for missing the memo on readability.ĭespite its duty to provide clear information about things that can help the public, or things the public need to do, government continuously sends out complicated information. Some of us need to think about it a little harder, depending on the general cognitive levels of our audiences. If you’re trying to get a message across-if you write stuff, that’s you-your reader will thank you for making it easier to comprehend. Who needs to worry about readability?Īll of us need to take readability into account. These strategies make the key information easier to find. Simple, logical structure and using more common words are also key features of readable content. And highly intelligent humans can have cognitive disabilities.Īlso, these days, people tend to scan text rather than read it word for word. Humans want to understand what they’re reading without having to work for it.
Hemingway editor grade meaning professional#
Humans are busy, especially professional ones.
But there’s a difference between dumbing something down and making it more readable. These people probably say turning something into plain English is ‘dumbing down’ the text. Or that if their audience are smart people, they would prefer to read more formal and complicated writing. Some people believe writing in a less readable way will make them look smarter. Improving readability is not ‘dumbing down’
Hemingway editor grade meaning how to#
You can also read my article with tips on how to improve readability in your writing. This article tells you what readability is and why it’s important. But it’s also important for a highly intelligent audience, who have a lot to read and are time poor. It makes content more accessible to a wider audience. Government departments increasingly need to meet readability scores for their online content. But the content is easy enough to follow for an adult who achieved a year 5 education. For example, this blog post is at a grade 5. It doesn’t mean you’re writing for someone in that year at school. The grade is an indication of the level of education needed to comprehend the text. The tools assess your writing according to a bunch of elements that make text more complicated or harder to read. We can measure readability using a number of tools (my faves are the Hemingway app and Visible Thread). If you want your reader to absorb your information correctly and quickly, readability is important. It becomes buried-or even worse, skewed-as the reader needs to put effort into putting it together. When we write long sentences, big words and complicated sentence structures, our meaning gets lost. But it especially matters to people who are marginalised, excluded and traditionally have had trouble accessing information. Why do I always mention it when I’m asked to edit or write something? Because it matters to everyone, regardless of your subject or audience. It’s something you can turn up or down, depending on some elements in your writing. Readability determines how easy it is to read a text.
What is readability and why does it matter?
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