Posted by IsoM on December 30, 2002, at 13:00:25
In reply to Re: Seventh grade?!!!, posted by Dinah on December 30, 2002, at 11:28:08
Yes, Dinah - don't use that readability calculator. All tests like that are flawed & can only calculate readability by:
1. judging which words you select
2. deciding if 'it' thinks your sentence structure is passive or not
3. judging whether your punctuation is correct or not.
4. using a spell-checker1. From an above post from Jonathan, this calculator graded the word "bad" to be at a 5th grade level but "idea" to be 13.4. I'm sure if he had used the word "malevolent" instead, he would've had a high grade. But as you can see, the word "bad" was the best choice.
2. As Beardy knows, passive verbs don't carry the same force in a resumé, but are well suited for communicating in a polite manner with others.
3. To judge whether punctuation is correct, the program must follow pre-determined examples. There's too many times that these programs will tell you that "...it’s fragrance is..." should be changed to "...its fragrance is..."!
4. Spell-checkers are good. When I'm working on a document that I wish to save or that's important, it's often caught my words with juxtapositioned letters (e.g. ohme instead of home). But spell-checkers often assume an unknown name is incorrectly spelled, marks acronyms, foreign expressions, & slang as incorrect most times, so it's hardly foolproof itself.
So in all seriousness, Dinah, don't bother using the readability calculator. I easily understand your posts. I'm sure others do too.
poster:IsoM
thread:8675
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20021128/msgs/8678.html