Blogging for Readability
I am not, nor have I ever been, impressed with pseudointellectual snobbery. I've always thought that when a person is truly smart, they do not have to tell you ahead of time. Rather, people will notice as time goes on. I doubt Stephen Hawking ever has made a big deal of telling how smart he is, because when he communicates it's obvious that he is a genius.
Have you seen The Blog Readability Test? It's a neat little program where you plug in your URL. I am not sure exactly what the script measures. It bills itself as testing the level of education necessary to read the blog or website.
Both this blog and my personal blog score a junior high school level:
Every blog I have seen this widget displayed on has scored something lofty like post-graduate degree needed to understand the blog.
Is that something to be proud of?
I remember learning when I took journalism that when writing for a general audience it is important to use everyday language. A newspaper or magazine article should be simple to read for any literate American. Uncommon words and jargon should be banned if a writer wants to be read and understood.
Based on that understanding of journalism, I am pleased to find that my blogs are simple to read. It is not my goal to have readers toggle between my site and dictionary.com in an effort to understand what I am trying to say.
My goal as a blogger is to communicate.
I am a poor communicator if the average reader must struggle to make sense of what I have written. I would hope that my intelligence with show in what I say, rather than big words and complicated sentence structure that I could choose to say it with.
I just tried it. All of the blogs I write got rated as "Elementary School".
It's probably all the juvenile humor.
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Nothing wrong with that. I love juvenile humor. I also know more people who read close to that level then at a post grad, or whatever, level.
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