Stuart Bruce has a good post over at his blog. Using the Gunning-Fog test to analyse the readability of copy, Stuart has scored some high-profile PR bloggers (and me!). For the record I scored 9.42 which isn’t bad. Put in perspective The Times scores 10 while The Sun scores 6.
I had hoped to score higher but think I blew it by posting that Daily Mail style rant last Sunday morning!
Keeping with The Times newspaper, on page 2 of today’s edition there is a column of nibs topped and tailed with two stories that caught me eye.
The first nib is headlined ‘Mohamed al-Guerbouzi – an apology’ and contains the sentence:
"The articles [published in July 2005] suggested that he was suspected of planning the [London] bombings and other terrorist atrocities, was linked to al-Qaeda extremists and had disappeared after the Madrid Bombings in 2004."
Guess what? None of the above was actually true. Mr al-Guerbouzi actually lives in London with his family and has managed to avoid becoming involved in international terrorism.
The second story at the foot of the column bears the headline: ‘Press Complaints’:
"A record number of complaints were made to the Press Complaints Commission last year…"
Shock horror!
Simon, the idea is to score lower 😉 so you win as I was 10.07. Charles Arthur (technology editor of The Guardiand) very quickly spotted the post this morning and commented on his blog at http://www.charlesarthur.com/blog/
I see Stuart has beaten me to it. Higher isn’t necessarily better.
It’s the reading age of your material. I believe the Readers Digest (used to?) aim for 9. When I helped relaunch Personal Computer World in 1979, that was our yardstick. Well, that and the Economist for style.
If you aim reasonably low, you catch more people without brassing off those of a higher reading age.
Your choice really. As a PR I’d say low is good.
Thak you for the clarification, gents. Oh well, I always thought I was a frustrated academic!
You should worry! According to this test you need a reading age of 65 plus a dictionary, compass and illegal stimulants to wade through Mediations.
To be honest, Philip, I never really read Mediations… but I enjoy looking at the pictures!