I didn't know there is a "readability" tool within Word. That's the program I'm using to type this, so I went looking for it. Seems like it only gets used after it examines the grammar of each sentence of the document. That can be annoying if one doesn't write in the official business style it is set up to handle. I have to let it comment on every single sentence. Bah!
The reason why I went looking for that tool is because some wise guy took a transcript of the unscripted answers to Obama's recent first press conference and ran it through the readability tool. He then did the same with the answers of Bush's first press conference. I'd gloat that Bush got a Grade Level Score of 7.1 (a 7th grader can understand it) and Obama got a 10.3 -- except I ran one of my talks for church through it and got a 6.7.
It seems the guy who did the comparisons missed a vital distinction. The grade level score isn't about the writer (or speaker) but is about the comprehension level of the reader. That means as smart as I am (ha!) I can write so well that even 6th graders can understand me.
Another observation of Obama's press conference is that he did not speak in bumper sticker-ese -- no soundbites that dumb-down what he was saying. Bush was famous for those: "Axis of Evil" or "Patriot Act".
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment