According to my research, the fog index for school teachers is Grade 5. Yes, teachers are taught on how to effectively write so as to be understood by a 10-year-old. So I checked shaw dot ca's webpages, and they all rate Grade 11.
If you need to confirm of a website is beyond your reading comprehension - uses big words and phrases - then try out www dot readability dot info !
I am not going to post a link because it's too valuable a link to let the spambots get ahold of to try to get into the server.
I will post the readability results of Gandhara dot blogspot dot com:
Readability report for http://gandhara.blogspot.com readability grades: Kincaid: 9.2 ARI: 10.0 Coleman-Liau: 11.2 Flesch Index: 64.1 Fog Index: 12.5 Lix: 42.9 = school year 7 SMOG-Grading: 11.3 sentence info: 19581 characters 4278 words, average length 4.58 characters = 1.45 syllables 217 sentences, average length 19.7 words 48% (106) short sentences (at most 15 words) 16% (35) long sentences (at least 30 words) 16 paragraphs, average length 13.6 sentences 2% (6) questions 48% (106) passive sentences longest sent 156 wds at sent 215; shortest sent 1 wds at sent 39 word usage: verb types: to be (145) auxiliary (51) types as % of total: conjunctions 6(242) pronouns 7(288) prepositions 11(490) nominalizations 1(47) sentence beginnings: pronoun (29) interrogative pronoun (6) article (16) subordinating conjunction (20) conjunction (4) preposition (14)
Here's a list of Fog Indexes for various websites:
www dot bell dot ca:
readability grades: Kincaid: 6.4 ARI: 8.4 Coleman-Liau: 13.7 Flesch Index: 71.4 Fog Index: 9.3 Lix: 33.4 = below school year 5 SMOG-Grading: 9.3
www dot shaw dot ca:
readability grades: Kincaid: 10.9 ARI: 16.2 Coleman-Liau: 19.2 Flesch Index: 51.3 Fog Index: 15.2 Lix: 64.5 = higher than school year 11 SMOG-Grading: 13.4
gettingtothegate dot com
(The feminist women's lobby group trying to get more women into government):
readability grades: Kincaid: 8.2 ARI: 9.9 Coleman-Liau: 11.7 Flesch Index: 69.8 Fog Index: 11.3 Lix: 36.4 = school year 5 SMOG-Grading: 10.3
Note: My guess is this website was written by a teacher.
andreareimer dot typepad dot com
(Andrea Reimer is the VSB school teacher who parlayed her network of university friends into stepping up in the Green Party of BC hierarchy, to the point where she's applying Green politicking to Vancouver city council):
Readability grades: Kincaid: 10.5 ARI: 12.1 Coleman-Liau: 10.1 Flesch Index: 65.1 Fog Index: 13.7 Lix: 45.4 = school year 8 SMOG-Grading: 11.2
Hmmm, she write one grade level about me! I bet people misunderstand her more than they do me!
Now a look at our fine post-second educational institutions starting with UBC:
www dot ubc dot ca:
readability grades: Kincaid: 7.6 ARI: 9.0 Coleman-Liau: 13.0 Flesch Index: 67.1 Fog Index: 10.9 Lix: 40.7 = school year 6 SMOG-Grading: 10.4
Obviously written by a teacher.
www dot sfu ca matches Andrea's Grade 8 score:
readability grades: Kincaid: 8.2 ARI: 9.0 Coleman-Liau: 10.2 Flesch Index: 70.5 Fog Index: 11.4 Lix: 44.6 = school year 8 SMOG-Grading: 10.3
Comment: My guess is, she gradated from SFU since the scores are so similar.
www dot kwantlen dot ca is not surprise, considering how terse the website is:
Readability grades: Kincaid: 1.5 ARI: 2.1 Coleman-Liau: 9.6 Flesch Index: 96.1 Fog Index: 5.7 Lix: 29.6 = below school year 5 SMOG-Grading: 6.9
So I decided to check another webpage in the kwantlen dot ca domain.
This is the score for the testimonials offered by faculty at Kwantlen (www dot kwantlen dot ca slash-fw testimonials slash-fw faculty dot html):
readability grades: Kincaid: 22.1 ARI: 28.0 Coleman-Liau: 15.8 Flesch Index: 22.6 Fog Index: 24.4 Lix: 84.5 = higher than school year 11 SMOG-Grading: 16.5
Being mostly masters grads, they naturally use a lot of big words and score above Grade 11, even better than the shaw dot ca webmaster, who might have graduated at an Albertan university.
Student testimonies (www dot kwantlen dot ca slash-fw testimonials slash-fw students dot html) scored the following:
readability grades: Kincaid: 22.0 ARI: 27.8 Coleman-Liau: 14.4 Flesch Index: 26.9 Fog Index: 24.6 Lix: 81.5 = higher than school year 11 SMOG-Grading: 16.1
Comment: Not as high as the teachers, but this leads me to suspect that the webmaster chose, in both cases, the most complex sentences to quote from both groups.
Just to make sure that it's the webmaster's editing that is making these testimonials so complex, I checked out the alumni's page to see if any quotes from teachers lowered the scores like it did the students'.
www dot kwantlen dot ca slash-fw testimonials slash-fw alumni dot html:
readability grades: Kincaid: 13.5 ARI: 17.1 Coleman-Liau: 12.9 Flesch Index: 53.8 Fog Index: 16.0 Lix: 57.1 = higher than school year 11 SMOG-Grading: 12.1
It looks like the alumnis, no longer hard-pressed to impress everyone like their former teachers and fellow students, scored more than 25 points lower on the Lix grade, which is still higher than Grade 11 but is dropping back to normal.
University of Calgary's webpage (www dot ucalgary dot ca) scores at around Grade 11:
readability grades: Kincaid: 12.1 ARI: 14.4 Coleman-Liau: 14.8 Flesch Index: 48.7 Fog Index: 15.3 Lix: 55.1 = school year 11 SMOG-Grading: 13.2
Comment: But Edmonton (www dot ualberta dot ca) scored higher, which means that the Shaw webmaster is a University of Alberta university grad surrounded by call centre staff who graduated from University of Calgary:
readability grades: Kincaid: 34.4 ARI: 43.9 Coleman-Liau: 18.4 Flesch Index: -16.1 Fog Index: 38.3 Lix: 123.4 = higher than school year 11 SMOG-Grading: 24.2
Comment: University of Alberta has the highest ratings so far, and that's the first time I've seen the Flesch Index go negative! And using by the grades, I've calculated that the Shaw webmaster may have networked with at least six of the call centre staff.
Now on to the government of bc:
readability grades: Kincaid: 17.4 ARI: 22.2 Coleman-Liau: 16.4 Flesch Index: 34.0 Fog Index: 20.6 Lix: 74.5 = higher than school year 11 SMOG-Grading: 16.0
www dot uvic dot ca scores:
readability grades: Kincaid: 12.4 ARI: 15.5 Coleman-Liau: 15.6 Flesch Index: 48.2 Fog Index: 16.0 Lix: 58.4 = higher than school year 11 SMOG-Grading: 13.8
The government of Canada (www dot gc dot ca slash-fw home dot html) scores in the same range
readability grades: Kincaid: 12.6 ARI: 17.1 Coleman-Liau: 16.2 Flesch Index: 50.4 Fog Index: 16.4 Lix: 57.4 = higher than school year 11 SMOG-Grading: 13.8
Checking www dot psac dot ca reveals similarities with student activists:
readability grades: Kincaid: 8.2 ARI: 11.9 Coleman-Liau: 16.3 Flesch Index: 63.9 Fog Index: 10.8 Lix: 48.9 = school year 9 SMOG-Grading: 10.3
The student left's website of choice for some (www dot resist dot ca) show:
readability grades: Kincaid: 11.2 ARI: 12.6 Coleman-Liau: 12.4 Flesch Index: 55.8 Fog Index: 14.6 Lix: 49.2 = school year 9 SMOG-Grading: 12.7
The activist newsfeed mostlywater dot org has pretty much the same level:
readability grades: Kincaid: 11.8 ARI: 13.9 Coleman-Liau: 12.4 Flesch Index: 56.3 Fog Index: 15.1 Lix: 50.7 = school year 9 SMOG-Grading: 12.7
Comment: This leads me to suspect that the webmasters of both sites have the same background, or have the same newsource.
Anarchist dot com however gives low grades, which leads me to suspect the webmaster has learned to keep it simple.
readability grades: Kincaid: 6.4 ARI: 6.6 Coleman-Liau: 9.9 Flesch Index: 76.4 Fog Index: 9.5 Lix: 33.8 = below school year 5 SMOG-Grading: 9.3
Since the scores for the psac website showed a strong tie with the student activist movement, I thought I'd find a site that caters to white collars. So I checked out the Canadian Venture Capitalist Association:
readability grades: Kincaid: 13.9 ARI: 16.7 Coleman-Liau: 16.9 Flesch Index: 38.1 Fog Index: 17.8 Lix: 62.0 = higher than school year 11 SMOG-Grading: 15.2
Comment: This may indicate the webmaster is a university grad.
So I checked www dot garage dot com:
readability grades: Kincaid: 8.5 ARI: 10.8 Coleman-Liau: 16.8 Flesch Index: 55.7 Fog Index: 11.7 Lix: 48.3 = school year 9 SMOG-Grading: 10.9
Finally, I peeked at www dot whitehouse dot gov and got this:
readability grades: Kincaid: 12.4 ARI: 14.9 Coleman-Liau: 13.7 Flesch Index: 51.2 Fog Index: 15.9 Lix: 52.7 = school year 10 SMOG-Grading: 13.5
2 comments:
Here is the readability score for this page:
readability grades:
Kincaid: 3.8
ARI: 3.6
Coleman-Liau: 11.1
Flesch Index: 80.4
Fog Index: 6.9
Lix: 30.9 = below school year 5
SMOG-Grading: 7.6
Here is why the Flesch Index can go high like in the UAlberta reading:
juicystudio dot com slash-fw services slash-fw readability dot php#fleschease
The algorith is:
Calculate the average number of words you use per sentence.
Calculate the average number of syllables per word.
Multiply the average number of syllables per word multiplied by 84.6 and subtract it from the average number of words multiplied by 1.015.
Subtract the result from 206.835.
Algorithm: 206.835 - (1.015 * average_words_sentence) - (84.6 * average_syllables_word)
Note that the total of average words per sentence times 1.015 can be added to average syllables per word times 84.6 to get a value approaching 206.835.
If the words per sentence is high, like 10 or more, that means that te average syllable per word only needs to be 196.82 / 84.6 or 2.3 to get a negative rating.
This means, in order for me to score higher, I need to write longer sentences and employ more multisyllabic words in my sentences.
Then certainly I can achieve a higher comprehension level, though this results in a lower readability since few people sustain reading at Grade 9 or above for long periods of time.
Post a Comment