A readability example, before and after (1)

To produce clear writing, you need to produce readable writing. Readability is a prerequisite to clarity. Let’s take a look at a readability example: two difficult paragraphs and a rewrite of the same two paragraphs.

For the readability measurements, I used Flesch Reading Ease (FRE). FRE scores typically run from 0 (very low readability) to 100 (very high readability). Here are a few sample ranges of scores:

60s Reader’s Digest
50s Time magazine
40s The Wall Street Journal
30s Harvard Law Review; white papers
20s IRS forms; academic papers
10s Many high-tech web sites

Readability example: before

Here are two consecutive paragraphs from the web site of a technology company:

Maintaining compliance with the growing number of industry regulations can be an overwhelming, costly and time consuming effort for organizations. Additionally, the financial and legal ramifications of a regulatory violation could be enormous, not to mention the potential negative impact on an organization’s reputation. Assuring the integrity and privacy of financial and operational information is a necessity for an organization's risk mitigation and regulatory compliance strategy.

Today’s enterprise needs to comply with international, federal and state mandates, follow corporate best practices and maintain client and investor confidence, therefore organizations must have continuous auditing and compliance processes and controls in place to safeguard critical data.

The FRE score is 0.0 – harder to read than a tax form.

Readability example: after

Without losing any important content, you could quickly and easily revise it to this:

To comply with the growing number of industry regulations can be overwhelming, costly and time consuming. A single violation could be costly and legally complex. And it could damage your reputation. You must assure the integrity and privacy of financial and operational information. And you must make this assurance part of your risk mitigation and regulatory compliance strategy.

Today, you must comply with international, federal and state mandates. You must follow corporate best practices and maintain client and investor confidence. To achieve all that, you need to safeguard critical data. And to do that, you need to have continuous auditing and compliance processes and controls in place.

The FRE score is 40.5 – about as readable as The Wall Street Journal.

Whenever you write, be mindful of word length and sentence length. Whenever you edit, watch for long words that should be short words. And consider breaking up any sentences longer than 20 words.

For business writing, always try for a score above 50. Settle for 30 to 50 if the topic requires it (as I did here). But never go below 30. That’s where you start losing readers – and sales.

Readers of academic and scientific writing generally tolerate lower readability than readers of business writing. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should strive for a low score in academic and scientific writing. All readers appreciate high readability, often unconsciously.

The Takeaway: Get in the habit of checking readability as you check spelling. Aim high. With continued practice, you will be able to attain high scores almost effortlessly.

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