Monday, May 21, 2012

Rating the Blogs

A story on NPR about Congressmen Talking like 10th graders got me interested so I went to Readability Score dot Com & plugged in some posts from some Cincinnati area blogs. Well, we're averaging about 10th grade, too.
The dense UrbanCincy came in last place on readability with a 44.8, altho they came in at the top grade level at 12.8.
While this list has amateur writers, literature buffs & published authors, I included the Cincinnati Enquirer Politics Extra Blog to see where the pros came in. Kinda in the middle on readability with a 62 & at the bottom on grade level with an 8.2 - lower than a prepress tech, database admin, a DJ & a boy band singer…..
FWIW, none of the Dean's posts were sampled at the Cincinnati Beacon, I just grabbed some of the latest posts.

Blogging isn't Cool
Readability - 56.2
Grade level - 10.68

COAST
Readability - 59.4
Grade level - 10.55

The Cincinnati Beacon
Readability - 61.6
Grade level - 8.9

Cincinnati Blog
Readability - 66.7
Grade level - 8.8

Cincinnati Enquirer Politics Extra
Readability - 62
Grade level - 8.2

The Cincinnati Monocle
Readability - 56.8
Grade level - 11.1

A Blog About Reading Marcel Proust
Readability - 64.7
Grade level - 9.7

Stacked
Readability - 65.9
Grade level - 8.4

UrbanCincy
Readability - 44.8
Grade level - 12.8

5 comments:

5chw4r7z said...

I'm guessing the coasters scored high because they use tiny easily understood words. Urbancincy uses many egghead concepts like Urban and scalability and transit.
Those have to rank really low on understandability.

When I was in college one of my profs said most college papers should be written at a 10th grade level. If not you were using too much jargon.

Quimbob said...

Well, the guys at UC are still fresh enough out of school they haven't forgotten all those words nobody uses.
Actually, after throwing some more crap at that readability site, I have concluded it's about as useful as a Cosmopolitan Magazine quiz.
Posting about it maintains my high standards, I guess.

COAST said...

"Boondoggle" isn't exactly a tiny word, although everybody knows what it means...it's a synonym for "streetcar."

5chw4r7z said...

The only people I see use that word are losers.

BOOYAA!!!

Kevin LeMaster said...

Hmm...of the eight posts on my front page, I got a 36.3/13.8.