What do think of Microsoft Word's Readability Statistics?

Question

I copied and pasted The Raven (because it is well known, loved and has a long text). Flesh Kincaid gave it an 8th grade score! Do you think that this is accurate when it 'grades' text?
Example, I was just given a third grade score.

OK, I typed John 3:16 into Word and it got a 10th grade level, he he. (repeated word)
I knew what that meant when I was 7 years old, your kidding, right?

Answer 1

When it checks grammar, etc. it seems to be roped into a very narrow view of what is correct. Personally, I prefer to have the flexibility to use clichés, jargon, first person, fragmented sentences, and gender-specific words.


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The preceding text was rated at 10.7, so I became curious, and tried another document I have been writing. I fully expected it to be well above 12th grade, but it came out as 7.6. I use too many clichés.

Answer 2

don't worry too much about this. use readability statistics as only the most superficial way of rating a text because they are based upon over-simplified assumptions about both readers and writers.

for example, what do you mean by 8th grade? the tests for no child left behind? the average education level of newspaper readers? american readers only? and, how different, really, is the difference between, say, 8th and 9th grades?

also, readability scores make assumptions based upon the number of words in a sentence -- assuming that longer sentences are harder to understand, and on size of vocabulary -- assuming that longer words are harder to understand. both of these are pretty superficial assumptions.

accepting these (very limiting) conditions, reading the king james version of the bible would require a person to have a high school degree to understand john 3:16!

i say "supercalifragilistic expialidocious"!

Answer 3

It's hard to determine rather it's absolutely accurate, since the "grade level" of a text is somewhat arbitrary. All the Word does is look at the structure of the sentences, length of the sentences and the length of the words that are being used.

Having written something that's at a lower grade level isn't necessarily bad, it just means that it's easier to read. In certain situations, that's what you want (typically when you're trying to relay information to another, the easier something is to read, the more likely they are to read it.)

Answer 4

It is junk, ignore it. It is only capable of syntax analysis. To presume you could evaluate in a meaningful way the "grade level" of a piece without respect to the semantics, the meaning of what is being written about, is a mistake.

Answer 5

I have never used anything but word count. Why bother with it? I never have and I write short stories all the time.

Answer 6

sounds like bs