In a recent blog post, I shared an article full of advice on how to write well in the workplace.
In that article, I leant about the Gunning-Fog Index, which is a way to “measure the readability of your text by counting words-per-sentence and syllables-per-word.”
The output of the GFI can be interpreted as the years of formal education required to understand the text on the first reading.
For example, Winston Churchill’s war time speeches were so simple the average 10-year-old could understand them, versus Kodak’s Security and Exchange Commission filing, which is so complicated it likely requires a Masters Degree.
I then got curious. What if I took a random sample of 5 of my blog posts and run it through this nifty GFI Tool? How many years of formal education would be required to understand my posts on the first reading?
I picked 5 posts at random from my blog: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; and I inserted them into the tool.
These posts received a score of 9.97.
Assuming these posts are representative of all the posts on my blog, it means that the average 14-year-old should be able to understand my posts on the first reading.
I’m okay with this score, but I want it to be lower.
It’s important to remember that the GFI isn’t assessing content. It only looks at sentence length and average syllable count. So, in my mind, irrespective of the topic—or complexity of the content—a lower GFI score is preferable.
If you’ve got any writing that you think is representative of your style, I encourage you to throw it into the tool and see what number you get. Is it where you want—or hoped—it would be?