So your a Genius ?

[Khamsin]

http://www.neurosurgery-online.com (a site containing various research articles and other resources on neurosurgery topics)
http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/readin...ary_school.jpg

http://www.neurosurgery-online.com/pt/r ... -00011.htm (article entitled "ATLANTO-OCCIPITAL DISLOCATION: PART 1-NORMAL OCCIPITAL CONDYLE-C1 INTERVAL IN 89 CHILDREN [CLINICAL STUDIES]" by Pang, Dachling M.D.; Nemzek, William R. M.D.; Zovickian, John M.D.)
http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/readin...igh_school.jpg

http://www.time4learning.com (preschool and elementary school resource site)
http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/readin...g/postgrad.jpg

http://www.time4learning.com/preschool-games.shtml
http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/readin.../undergrad.jpg

[Charla]

You think maybe it just drops all the text on the page into a string parser and counts how many exceptions get thrown? Cause in that case, the giant list of names at the bottom of bluegartr.com/forum could have been throwing the original test. And things like informal language which tend to be harder to machine parse would push the reading level up, while precise or technical writing would push it down.

[Elesirdur]

Reading level calculations, like the one in MS Word, are typically dependant on how long the average word is and how long individual sentences go on for. Higher difficulty writing will have lots of big words and long sentences, whereas easy reading passages will have short and concise sentences with few extra clauses.

Okay, as I'm writing this I looked up the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test which is used in the MS Word software suites. The first major factor is the ratio of words to sentences, and the second factor is the ratio of syllables to words.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/4/e...74482b9bef.png = reading level

From working in communications and doing some PR stuff, you generally want to shoot for about an 8th grade readability level. Easy to understand and, most importantly, can be read and understand quickly by a wide swath of the population. Pretty much all my university essays and reports came out at a readability level in the 40s (level, not grade-wise), which is a bit better than the Harvard Law Review. Translating that into business writing, however, has not been easy. Executives don't want flowing prose or deep arguments, they want a briefing they can read in 30 seconds on their BlackBerry.


Edit: Heh, just plopped that post into MS Word and it gave it a Flesch Reading Ease rating of 51.0 (about the same as Time magazine), and a grade level of 11.5.

[Charla]

Reading level calculations, like the one in MS Word, are typically dependant on how long the average word is and how long individual sentences go on for. Higher difficulty writing will have lots of big words and long sentences, whereas easy reading passages will have short and concise sentences with few extra clauses.

Even better. That means a page with no/almost no periods, like a list of topics in a forum, will get a hugely inflated score because it all gets counted as one sentence. And a comma-delineated list of 1047 names.

[Khamsin]

Reading level calculations, like the one in MS Word, are typically dependant on how long the average word is and how long individual sentences go on for. Higher difficulty writing will have lots of big words and long sentences, whereas easy reading passages will have short and concise sentences with few extra clauses.

Even better. That means a page with no/almost no periods, like a list of topics in a forum, will get a hugely inflated score because it all gets counted as one sentence. And a comma-delineated list of 1047 names.

And a blank page will get the highest score of all, 206.835.