From the course: Learning to Write for the Web
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Challenge: Calculate the reading level of a piece of text
From the course: Learning to Write for the Web
Challenge: Calculate the reading level of a piece of text
- For this exercise, we're going to manually calculate the reading level of a piece of text. Although you can do this using most modern word-processors, going through the process with a pen and paper really helps you understand the elements that make a piece of text, harder or easier to read. Find the exercise file called Chapter 2, Reading Level. In it, you'll see that there's a piece of text and a graph. For now, just focus on the piece of text. What I want you to do, is count the number of sentences and the number of syllables in the chunk of text. I've already marked out exactly 100 words, so you'll notice there'll be a fractional sentence. I normally count to the nearest tenth of a sentence. To count the syllables, say each word out loud and count on your fingers the number of emphasis points. For instance, the word emphasis has three syllables. Em-pha-sis. A number like 49 percent has five syllables. Four-ty-nine-per-cent. It's easier to tally the syllables at the end of each…
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