Assessing the readability of an AdAge.com excerpt.

This month's sample text comes from an October 28 AdAge.com article ("Magazine Publishers Are Changing the Way They Work. But Will It Be Enough?" by Jeremy Barr). Here's the excerpt:

"Early last year, Time Inc. instituted what was originally known as a 'pub desk' for like-minded brands Time, Fortune, and Money, though the degree of cooperation between the brands has ebbed and flowed. This desk, and the staffers assigned to work on it, were tasked with working fast and producing quick hits, sometimes by aggregating content from other publications. According to a former employee, some staffers were frustrated that getting shifts on the desk took them away from the work they were hired to do. Some of these staffers chose to eventually leave the company, the individual said. These days, though, the brands are now hiring more specifically to fill those roles."

--Word count: 112 words
--Average sentence length: 22 words (33, 26, 26, 13, 14)
--Words with 3+ syllables: 10 percent (11/112 words)
--Fog Index: (22+10)*.4 = 12 (12.8, no rounding)

(Note: To avoid confusion, we did not italicize longer words this month because the sample itself contains italicized titles.)

This sample weighs in at a near-ideal 12 points. We only need to cut one point from the score. Let's see what we can do.

"Early last year, Time Inc. instituted what was originally known as a 'pub desk' for like-minded brands Time, Fortune, and Money. The degree of cooperation between the brands has ebbed and flowed. This desk, and the staffers assigned to work on it, were tasked with working fast and producing quick hits, sometimes by collecting content from other publications. According to a former employee, some staffers were frustrated that getting shifts on the desk took them away from the work they were hired to do. Some of these staffers chose to eventually leave Time Inc., the person said. These days, though, the brands are now hiring more specifically to fill those roles."

--Word count: 111 words
--Average sentence length: 19 words (21, 11, 26, 26, 13, 14)
--Words with 3+ syllables: 7 percent (8/111 words)
--Fog Index: (19+7)*.4 = 10 (10.4, no rounding)

Our modest changes yielded big rewards. Five sentences became 6, cutting 3 points from the average sentence length. Eleven longer words became 8, cutting the percentage by 3. These changes brought the Fog Index down from 12.8 to 10.4, over 2 points.

Add your comment.