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Check Text Readability

 
This tool will give you three scores, telling you how easy text is to read. Simply enter the text you wish to check into the box below, and your scores will be calculated. More information about the Flesch-Kincaid readability scoring systems and the functions behind this tool can be found in the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level article or the Gunning-Fog Index article.


 

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41 comments (Add Yours)

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hi! neat script! the layout seems to be broken, though. I get loads of whitespace between the input box of the script and your last paragraph.

on a sidenote, the comment form looks a bit weird as well -- but it's cool :-) // rck
Adam Bouskila
Canada #2: June 5, 2005
I find it really pointless.
Fair enough, Adam. Constructive criticism would have been more intelligent and maybe even helpful, but as you've gone down the "pointless confrontational comment" route, I'll reply to what little you've said.

As I said in the article about this, text readability is very difficult to gauge programatically (at least to any degree of accuracy). However, this type of quick test can help to point out to a writer when they are over-complicating things. Some of us are not lucky enough to always write perfectly, and need a little help making sure what we post to the web is easy to read.
Paulg
France #4: July 29, 2005
Nice Script Dave. Been looking for something similar for UK gove websites I work for.

BTW your intro text to the script didn't score very well, whereas the previous posters 'I find it really pointless' probably did very well... which i find strangely humourous... any how respect to you again, and where can i get my hands on this script? Theres some councilspeak out there I gotta deal with.

Paul
ball
Canada #5: August 12, 2005
very helpful. I am on Linux and their is no feasible readbility checker for me.

It always tells me when something I write is crap (of course I always have a high ego)
ball
Canada #6: August 12, 2005
oops...that should be "THERE", sorry
Really nice script - I've just linked it in a post, along with another tool (which makes use of some other methods to evaluate texts in Spanish, Swedish, French, ...; still no Portuguese ;) ).

Just one correction: it's the Gunning-*Fog* Index. :)
Oops! Thanks, João, that's now been corrected.
Joe
United States #9: October 12, 2005
Handy script! I am working towards a MS degree and my assugnment was just graded using the Flescher Readability score method. I ran the same text through your script which scored rather high, i.e., non-readable for the average reader (9th greade level). I tried rewriting the exercise to see what it took to get a 9th grade level. To my surprise, I could only get it down to 11th grade level and it already read like some moron had written it (lol). Are you sure the script is correct? How do you calculate the number of syllables per word?
Even if not totally accurate, I find the script quite useful. Thanks for providing it.
Joe
United States #10: October 12, 2005
Oops, assugnment = assignment
Hi Joe. It's not 100% accurate but it is pretty damn close. The problem is programatically working out the number of syllables in a word, which is tricky.

The trick is to write well, but still have good readability. That's an art!
Anonymous
United States #12: October 18, 2005
ILoveJackDaniels, what is the exact method you use to calculate the number of syllables?

(yes, I do realize this post is over a year old)
The article links through to the functions and methods used to calculate readability, including syllable number calculations.
gregtower@gmail.com
Spain #14: October 20, 2005
<http://www.ilovejackdaniels.com/resources/readability-score/> nav column renders wrong in Explorer 6.0 SP2, ;-(

VG in other browsers.
CONGRATULATIONS for the site
Its a great tool that I can't stop using. Have found another tool at http://resources.aellalei.com/writer/sample.php Only, I keep wondering why the results are that different. Actually, what would be interesting to know is how that model works. Did you check it against your model?
Dan
United Kingdom #16: January 20, 2006
I found the results for the Fog index to be different than my own calculations, but then again I was discounting some words myself that I didn't think should be included - e.g place names.

Still strange though.
Tyler
United States #17: February 6, 2006
As Dezso Papp said, the Obsidian (aellalei) readability analysis gives very different results (e.g., your site gives my text a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of 6; theirs, a 3.96). Also, I would enjoy a tool that uses the Powers-Sumner-Kearl formula. Thanks.
More than likely the discrepancy is down to the calculation of the number of syllables in text, which isn't exact. It's pretty good, but tricky to get it 100% accurate.
Great stuff. We do some statistical investigations using these measures as part of the Year 6 maths course at my school, and this is going to save so much time. Many thanks for making this public.
Carolyn Hillman
United States #20: June 11, 2006
I am giving a presentation tomorrow on leveled reading. The best part of the presentation will be when I tell the class that at www.ilovejackdaniels.com they can find a handy little readability tool. School should involve more whisky.
Ratu Mataira
New Zealand #21: June 13, 2006
Great tool. I'm an editor for a childern's educatonal publisher. I am beginning work on a new series of maths literacy books. I will be using your site regularly to check manuscripts.
Great tool! I use the openoffice.org work suite (website posted as homepage) . I think it's an excellent alternative to MS Office. However, one of the only features the word processor, writer, doesn't have is the is the ability to get stats like grade level and reading ease. This tool solves that little problem. Though if i may make a suggestion, it'd be great if the average sentences per paragraph was included in the notes. Now if only OpenOffice added the ability to drag and drop text, it'd be without a shadow of a doubt the superior office suite.
United States #23: July 31, 2006
I absolutely love this tool. I am working on my MA and I use this for every paper I write. I always want to make sure I am writing graduate level work. Thank You!
I really like this script and I see where the problems arrise from the syllable count. If you run the count_syllables() function by itself and then manually count the number of syllables the function usually returns a higher value. There isn't a sufficient rule for words that end in the letter "e". Here are a few 1 syllable words that the function counts as 2:
* have
* house
* hive
* base
* live
* leave
* brave
Here are a few 2 syllable words that the function counts as 2:
* behave
* release
* combine
Additionally, there are a few words in English (At least American English) that look very much like two syllables but are only one like the following:
* lived
* lives
* cares
* rates

Now for the real issue, we have all of those wordes the end with an "e" that should be counted a 1 syllable but then we have others that are supposed to be 2 syllables like the following:
* mile
* tile
* aisle
* isle
* style
One last thought, 'ses and 'ces!
bases and faces are both 2 syllable words but lives and cares are only one syllable.

Any ideas of how we might write a few more rules for these types of words?

Thanks.
Hi Vujsa,

There are plenty of words that are exceptions to the rules in the function - it's English, after all. Many of the words you mention are tricky ones to add rules for - in many ways, better to hard-code exceptions into to the function to handle these.
Hey dave,

Thanks for the reply. The only reason I bring up this particular issue is doue to the very large number of words in English that end with an 'e'. I don't think that it is important to try to come up with rules for every single situation that a word ends with "e" but it would be nice to get the top 80% which is about what is being missed. The other 20% would work isself out in the averages much like your name:
Dave = 2 syllables
Child = 1 syllable
3 syllables is correct but that was because the script got lucky. ;)

But all things considered, I think that the readability scripts you have put together work very well. There only real weakness from what I can tell is the syllable rocognition system which is difficult to fix since in English, the exception is the rule. lol
I was just wondering if anyone has considered expanding the list of rules to account for a greater number of situations.

vujsa
s.kensler@gmail.com
United States #27: October 21, 2006
I need something just like this for school when writing quizzes for Reading Counts. We don't have Internet at our school. Is there a "portable" version of this that I can install on my Library computer?
Is there a "portable" version of this that I can install on my Library computer?

-----

Assuming you have MS Office on your computer, this scale as well as many others can be activated via "Tools > Options > Spelling & Grammer > Readability Statistics".
alex
United Kingdom #29: January 22, 2007
hey this helped out loads as a student wanting to know if what i was writing was going to be too complicated for examiners it especially helped because i tend to write long and complicated essays that can get out of hand and i dont tend to notice.
so thanks dave and keep up the great work
DeadMonikor
United States #30: January 23, 2007
Excellent tool for nerds. I completely dig it. From a writing perspective, it is difficult to understand how to use the information. E.G. reading level 11.9 readability 42. Low readability, but snobbish M.B.A. profs like it, so who is to say?
tinyjab
Unknown #31: February 27, 2007
Maybe someone else finds the readability scale pointless, but I find it useful. I use it to get a rough idea of whether or not I'm keeping what I write simple.
Mae East
United States #33: March 14, 2007
Thanks for a great tool and a fun website.

I'd like to add a request: could the results include Total # of Words? And while I'm asking, how about a recommended minimum text to submit?

I think some of my students are trying to use samples that are too small. Thanks again.
Simon
United Kingdom #34: April 29, 2007
Excllent tool,now bookmarked as a study aid. Nice to know I'm writing at Post-grad level!
Would never 'ave thunk it....
Just need a clarification - If I have s script which contains Tables,Tabular tags as well as Text,how the scores will be computed.whether it ignores or considers those Tables and tags.
Jane
New Zealand #36: August 1, 2007
How does your calcualtion differ from the Readibility and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level tests in Tools in Microsoft word. The Grade level, words per sentence and readibility levels differ.
Hi Jane.

In short, I don't know. I don't have access to Microsoft's source code so can't tell you how they calculate these scores. Differences, though, are likely to be caused primarily by differences in the function that calculates the number of syllables in a word.
its nice but i wish you include readability of a paragraph using gunning fog index.thanks..
I think I found why vujsa was having problems with the syllable count.

In the "count_syllables" function there is two lists of syllables. One for adding to the count, one for subtracting.

If you look at the values in those lists, they appear to be Regular Expressions.
However the function those values are being passed too "strpos" takes a literal string argument, not a regular expression.

I'm getting expected results for syllables using the following loops instead of the "strpos" loops in that function.

foreach ($subsyl as &$syl) {
$syllables -= preg_match('~'.$syl.'~', $word);
}
foreach ($addsyl as &$syl) {
$syllables += preg_match('~'.$syl.'~', $word);
}

Note that in PHP < 5 "as &$syl" needs to be "as $syl" because PHP < 5 doesn't support byref in foreach loops.
Josh
Unknown #40: March 27, 2008
Hi! Using the code on the two pages linked from here (copy paste, even), I get different results for the Gunning-Fog Index. Did you change something in your live code but not the example? Regardless -- great code! Thanks for sharing.
Readability Formula Constants
Unknown #41: April 3, 2008
I have question about the constant in readability formula. Where they come from?

Like Flesch readability formula:

ReadingEase = 206.835− (1.015 * ASL) − (0.846 *AWL)

Also, Can we apply it to other language like French ?

 

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