Should You Care About Readability Tests?

Do you use WordPress for blogging?  Then you may recognize the “Flesch-Kincaid Readability Score” in its critique of your content.   

The platform gives both a percentage and a critique.  Sometimes, it may find  your content is “hard to read.”   There may be suggestions, too: things like too much use of passive voice, for instance. 

Word Press Readability Critique

So, does your post content need more work?  Maybe yes; maybe, no. 

The WordPress critique also gives two thumbs up if your post is a mere 300 words long.  For many blogs (especially those focusing on legal topics) 300 words is not enough to get the job done. 

So my first point is to take the WordPress editor with a big fat grain of salt.  It’s not all one size fits all out there. 

The goal is to do what’s right for your reader.   Be smart.  Be savvy. 

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How Readability Tests Work

This is not to say that I don’t like the idea of a readability test.  After all, its purpose is to help you connect with your readers by insuring your writing corresponds to their reading level.   

How?  Like a magician, the readability test throws several things into its top hat before pulling out its white rabbit: things like how often you use passive voice, the complexity of your sentences, the length of your paragraphs, and if you use adverbs. 

Cut and paste your content into their tool (which automatically happens in WordPress), and voila! You have a readability score. 

The Writer discusses readability tests and reports that 65 is a good score on Flesch-Kincaid for “business writing.”  And it points out that the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test is one tool; there are others, as well. 

In fact, RavenTools has compiled a list on its blog described as the “ultimate list of online content readability tests.”  If you’re curious, then go check out their collection. 

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It’s All about Your Reader

Here’s my second point.  It’s not about the readability score as much as it is about the writer understanding his or her reader. 

If you are writing a legal blog discussing new SCOTUS opinions, where your readers are fellow lawyers and legal scholars, then your writing will score differently than if you are writing a blog explaining a new SCOTUS opinion to the general public.   (Wow, look at that long sentence!)

You aren’t writing for yourself.  You’re writing to convey a message.  If a readability test helps you to visualize and understand your reader better, then that is the best reason to use it.  IMHO.

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Have Some Fun with It

Oh, and one last thing.  Have some fun with these readability tests. Go grab some of your favorite writing and plug it into the thing. 

Say, throw some David Foster Wallace into your WordPress blog platform.  What pops up in the critique?  

Or try Ernest Hemingway, Nora Ephron, Truman Capote, or James Baldwin.   See how they score (and think about their intended readers).   

Passive Voice and the Zombie Rule

For lawyers, writers, and researchers, passive voice can be the right choice.  Or not.

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Edits of my work do come back with notations that I've used the passive voice here and there.  

I am not ashamed.  

Sometimes, it's okay.  That's right, folks.  Sometimes, passive voice gets to stay.  

Finding The Passive Voice

Before deciding when and if passive voice is acceptable, you need to find it.  There's a fun grammar hack for ferreting out passive voice in your writing.  

It's called the "zombie rule."

I'm not sure who invented this -- maybe rjohnson, USMC professor --- but it's fun and it's fast.  All you do is stick the phrase "by zombies" after the verb.  If it works, then it's passive voice.

The Zombie Rule: Examples

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If the sentence makes sense with zombies, then YIKES you've got passive voice.  Examples:

• Those dishes have already been washed [by zombies].  (Yep.)
• The court ruled the statute was [by zombies] unconstitutional.  (Nope.)
• The rumor didn't spread by itself - it was leaked [by zombies] in social media. (Yep.)
• SCOTUS released [by zombies] its opinion today.  (Nope.)

For more on the Zombie Rule, check out Snarky Grammar Guide and Grammarly.

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Passive Voice Has Its Place

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There are times to use passive voice.  I'm not going to discuss them here.  Suffice to say, it's acceptable if it's adding value to your writing.  You know this.  

The University of Wisconsin finds passive voice works when you are:

• creating an authoritative tone; or
• emphasizing the action rather than the actor.

Purdue allows passive voice when it is "rhetorically effective." 

The American Bar Association has an article discussing passive voice in legal writing.

Biomedical Editor approves passive voice in medical and scientific writing.  

(Go to the above sites to read more detail and get more examples.)

Web Writing Tip: Never Write Directly in Your Blog Platform Because You May Lose Your Blog Post - and What to Do if This Happens

Sure, it’s faster and pretty darn easy to write your blog post directly into your platform, whether it’s WordPress or Blogger. It’s faster to get the post done and published and out on the web — and it’s so much easier to insert hyperlinks this way.

I get it. I wrote directly into the little box on the screen for Blogger or WordPress for several years.

Until I was happily writing away, inserted a link or two, and hit the publish button only to have the platform crash. Crash, as in lost.

Everything was gone. The content, the links, the image.

Irritating, obviously. So I heaved a heavy sigh, and rewrote the darn thing. (Google History helped here.) It wasn’t as much fun this time, I didn’t write with as much zip, but the re-creation was not that difficult.

I made sure I saved the stuff a couple of times, to be on the safe side. No worries. I hit publish.

Everything disappeared from the screen. I saw the dreaded “404” error message.

So, I made a phone call to the designer ….

And learned this lesson that I would like to share with you.

Never, and I mean NEVER, write directly into the blogging platform.

Write your blog post in Word, Google Docs, or Scrivener; collect your hyperlinks; get your image ready to go, and then open WordPress or Blogger.

Here are some things I do to make this smoother since, yes, it’s not as fast and speedy to create your post in one place and then transfer it into the platform as it is to do everything in one spot.

1. I write everything into a content draft so I can “select all” and easily drop everything into the blogging platform. I use Scrivener for this, although many of my clients use Word to write their stuff. This is an easier thing to accomplish with WordPress than Blogger for Scrivener pastes — in Blogger, I have to take the time to insert paragraph breaks, etc., and I have to make sure that I’m inserting into “html” and not the “compose” block or things are even more hopper-jawed. It’s a pain, but not enough to make me stop using Scrivener.

2. Links are important in blog posts. I insert hyperlinks into my content as I go because I’ve found that it’s easier to remember what phrase you want to use with the link when the hyperlink is closer to the chosen text than if all your links are listed in a group at the end of your document (or bookmarked or tagged in Pocket, etc.). My practice is to insert the hyperlink immediately below the paragraph I’ve written, and if there are two links, then I insert them in the order they’ll appear in the content.

3. It also helps me to write the title and place it into the top of the content. Not as the title of the Word document or the Scrivener file, but as the first sentence of the post’s content.

4. As soon as I cut (or copy) from Scrivener and paste my entire block of content into the platform, I save it. No categories, no tags, I just save the inserted content immediately.

5. AFTER I save the post in the platform, I take the title I’ve written from the top of the content block and insert it into the title bar. Why? WordPress has given me problems a time or two with crashing when things are placed into the title bar. This way, if there’s a crash, hopefully that content is safely saved. I save again now.

6. Then I edit the post title’s file name (for example, see that little spot in WordPress right below where the title appears) because the platform will save something without a good description like “834” - and unless you change it, that’s what will appear in the hyperlink for your blog post.

William Safire's Rules of Great Writing

I love these Great Rules for Writing by William Safire, since they each exemplify the rule itself.  Fun stuff:

Do not put statements in the negative form.

And don't start sentences with a conjunction.

If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.

Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.

Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.

De-accession euphemisms.

If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.

Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.


-- QuoteGarden

What is a Thought Leader? A Rose By Any Other Name Should Use the Other Name

The term "thought leader" is attributed to former Harvard Business Review editor in chief Joel Kurtzman.  When Kurtzman was editor-in-chief of the magazine Strategy + Business, he first used the phrase in 1994, labeling those he interviewed for their forward-thinking, savvy business ideas as "thought leaders."

Today, "thought leader" is a phrase that has been so overused and misapplied that many find its use suspicious.  Use it, and be ready: for many, it sets off the internal "BS alarm." 

Last year, Rob Cottingham at Read.Write.Web. suggested that "thought leader" be one of those buzzwords we no longer use.  Once useful, Cottingham finds its had all its life sucked out of it by overapplication.

I agree.  Don't get me wrong:  I like the phrase.  I like it.  Problem is, so many have used it and so many have stuck it on folk that are so obviously NOT thought leaders that it's just not valuable any longer - at least not in a good way. 

It reminds me of fajita tacos.  Boy, were they great when they first arrived.  We'd all go to the restaurant downtown and await the hissing cast iron skillets as they sojourned through the dining room to our white linen tabletops.  Beef, chicken, onions, bell peppers, charred and lovely and steaming. 

Now, you drive through any taco franchise and order a couple of fajita tacos and they arrive in a paper sack, with some salsa and guacamole on the side if you're lucky.  Still tasty, but just not the same.

Great Writers' Rules of Writing: Orwell, Heinlein, Twain & Leonard

George Orwell gave us Animal Farm and 1984. In his 1945 essay, "Politics and the English Language," he discussed writing - and I like PickTheBrain's synopsis of Orwell's teachings to these five rules:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word when a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive when you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an ordinary English equivalent.

Robert Heinlein produced science fiction classics like Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers. His Rules of Writing are so popular, you can buy them on a tee shirt:

1. You Must Write.
2. Finish What You Start.
3. Refrain from Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
4. You Must Put Your Story on the Market.
5. You Must Keep It On the Market Until It's Sold.

Mark Twain's 18 Rules of Writing are hilarious - and true - and while too long to list here, can be read in their entirety at the PBS site in Twain's 1895 Essay, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses." Here's an excerpt:

12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
14. Eschew surplusage.
15. Not omit necessary details.
16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
17. Use good grammar.
18. Employ a simple and straightforward style.

Finally, the well-known rules established by Elmore Leonard in his 1991 essay for the New York Times, "Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle," which has been expanded into book form and is currently for sale on his website and elsewhere, if you're interested. They include:

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
4. Never use a verb other than ''said'' to carry dialogue.
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
11.If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.

Writer Lawyer Tip: Web vs Print - A Must Read Article for Writers

This jewel of an article, written by Paul Gillin and entitled, "How the Coming Newspaper Industry Collapse Will Reinvigorate Journalism," is something that is worth dropping what you are doing, right now, to read the darn thing. Twice.

Great Writers' Rules of Writing: Vonnegut Has 8

Kurt Vonnegut's 8 rules for writing fiction:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Vonnegut adds that American short story writer, Flannery O'Connor, broke all these rules except the first.

-- Vonnegut, Kurt Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction , pp. 9-10(New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1999).

Read Print is a Great Find

Read Print is a great site -- it offers lots of free access to classic works of literature, plus the complete works of Shakespeare. An added feature is a list of articles covering a range of writing-related issues: what is a sonnet? how to write a magazine article? Lots of fun, and there are coupons too! Nice.

No compensation has been received for this review.

It's NaNoWriMo Time Again

Once again, it's National Novel Writing Month and we're already four days into the month-long process. You're not too late, if you want to sign up online -- you'll get your own page with a tracker of your progress.

What's NaNoWriMo? From the site:

"National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

"Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

"Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

"Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down."


There are local groups that have writing meet-ups during the month, as well as providing other support (group e-mails, etc.). And, yes, books do get written during NaNoWriMo -- some, ultimately, are even published.

Me? I admit to joining the 2005 NaNoWriMo and it did help me get organized and moving forward on a fiction work. However, no, I didn't finish. This year, I've got my two huge projects, plus a myriad of other assorted projects with deadlines and if I have extra time during this month, I need to focus on getting away from the keyboard ... but I have hopes for NaNoWriMo next year. It was fun.

Managing Time: My Dr. Pepper Rule

It's so different.

Practicing law meant watching time to the tenth of an hour, and being available for clients 24/7. Answering the phone, responding to e-mails, and juggling this with the work load -- it became a lifestyle.

I took pride on how well I could multi-task all this, day in and day out. It was also a good excuse to buy new techno-gadgets.

Now that I'm writing? Things have changed. Not that time isn't part of the billing process, of course. I bill by the hour on most projects.

However, I cannot function as a writer and answer e-mails as they pop in, or pick up the phone every single time it rings. I have to have blocks of time to concentrate on the writing, alone. With an occasional break with the dogs out back, in the sunshine, tossing the ball around.

If I start answering the phone or responding to e-mails, willy nilly, then I won't make my daily word count. Word Count. That's my new Magic Number.

So, I've developed the Dr. Pepper Rule. I check voice mail and e-mail, and respond accordingly, at 10, 2, and 4. It works for me.

Yago Starak Made $10,899.83 BLOGGING Last Month

Yes, that's right - $100.17 short of $11K in one month. Is this true? How did he do it? Who is this guy?

Go read all about it for yourself, including checking out his numbers (because he does provide support for his tally) at his blog, Entrepreneur's Journey.

Of course, Starak's post is all about monitizing your blog - and he's also promoting his Blog Mastermind program - but it is a fascinating thing to consider: a Six Figure Blog is, apparently, doable.

From a writing perspective, there's more to it. Darrell Rouse gives us The 4 Pillars of Writing Exceptional Blogs over at Problogger, Jay Rosen of NYU gives out awards at The Best Blogging Newspapers in the US, and Tony Long at Wired.Com remains unconvinced in You, To, Can Right Like a Blogger.

Online Research: Don't Stop At Google

When doing online research, it's tempting to use Google and stop there. Don't.

Check out the different search results I retrieved this morning for the one word search "writing" using Google, Yahoo, and Ask (sponsored links excluded, of course). Only Writing.Com appears within the top 5 results on all three search engines:

Google gave me:

Writing.Com
Writers, Writing, Poetry, Creative Writing, Fiction ... Writing.Com is the online community for creative writing, fiction writing, story writing, poetry writing, writing contests, writing portfolios, writing help ...
www.writing.com/ - 45k - Cached - Similar pages

Writing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Writing, is the representation of language in a textual medium; that is with the use of signs or symbols. It is distinguished from illustration such as cave ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing - 61k - Cached - Similar pages

Guide to Grammar and Writing
The Guide to Grammar and Writing contains scores of digital handouts on grammar and English usage, over 170 computer-graded quizzes, recommendations on ...
grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ - 23k - Cached - Similar pages

Writing.org
Advice for Freelance WritersArticles to help you launch a freelance writing career, from a former literary agent and PLAYBOY editor.
www.writing.org/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages

Writing
A quality educational site offering 5000+ FREE printable theme units, word puzzles, writing forms, book report forms,math, ideas, lessons and much more.www.abcteach.com/directory/basics/writing/ - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

Yahoo gave me:

Writing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Illustration of a scribe writing ... Writing is also a distinctly human activity. ... Such writing has been speculatively designated as coincidental. ...
Quick Links: Introduction - Means for recording information - Writing systems
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing - 61k

Writing.Com
Online community for readers and writers of all ages, interests, and skill levels.www.writing.com - 44k

Purdue University Writing Lab
Information about services offered, plus handouts for students and teachers.owl.english.purdue.edu - 8k

OWL Handouts Listed by Topic
... have an entire section on using our Writing Lab and our OWL in various courses. ... Coping with Writing Anxiety. Developing an Outline. Sample Outline. Non ...owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/index2.html - 33k - Cached

Pages tagged with "writing" on del.icio.us
... steinmetz to computer writing typewriter typography simple tools ... citizenhelder to moleskine productivity lifehacks gtd hacks writing creativity ...del.icio.us/tag/writing - 16k - Cached


Ask gave me:

Writing-World.com
Writing articles and resources. Tips about how to become a better writer, get published and find writing markets. From Moira Allen.
www.writing-world.com/ www.writing-world.com/ · Cached

Writing.com
An online community dedicated to fostering writing skills. With a free membership anyone may read, write, rate, and review works.
www.writing.com/ www.writing.com/ · Cached

The Writery
Newsletter of the campus' writing assistance program.
www.missouri.edu/~writery/

Purdue Online Writing Lab
Collection of handouts on all aspects of writing, from spelling to plagiarism, plus grammar exercises with answer keys, job search workshop, ...
owl.english.purdue.edu/ · Cached

Writing.org
Articles to help you launch a freelance writing career, from a former literary agent and PLAYBOY editor.
www.writing.org/ www.writing.org/ · Cached

Perez Hilton v Lindsay Lohan's Friend: Defamation Concerns for a Blogger

All the media coverage today surrounding Perez Hilton being sued by Lindsay Lohan's friend for defamation may give many a blogger pause.

Here's the skinny: bloggers can be sued for defamation not only for their own posts - anonymous or otherwise - but also for the comments left on their blog. Comments, too? Yep.

And, in today's legal arena, remember that while they may not win, they may well be able to pursue a lawsuit against you. In this murky, new area of the law, there's lots of leeway to argue that a cause of action has been established and the suit's not frivolous (even if it's not winable).

While the law is still evolving, here's what is leading the pack:

1. John Doe 1 v. John Cahill. In October 2005, the Delaware Supreme Court held that anonymous bloggers are not immune from being sued, but the standard of proof to reveal their identity is the highest possible burden.

2.The US Communications Decency Act holds that a blogger who repeats someone else's statements is legally responsible for the defamatory content of those statements, just as if the blogger was the original speaker, if the blogger knew, or had reason to know, that the statements were defamatory. The Act protects against liability for online "intermediaries" who merely provide or republish speech by others.

For a nice discussion of this evolving area of the law, check out TCS Daily's 2003 article, The Next Litigation Background; the British blog Internet Defamation which has been posting exclusively on this topic from a world-wide perspective since 2005; the articles at Law.Com, including Charles Toutant's on cult bloggers and the October 2007 Law.Com's online report of the National Law Journal's Roundtable discussion on this issue.

Test Your Grammar & Punctuation

Great, fun, and free: the Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation's collection of free online quizzes. It's addictive. (They also offer a free reference guide to many grammar rules - it's worth bookmarking.)

Another great free site, with lots and lots of quizzes: About.Com's Learning English as a Second Language Quiz Collection.

Finally, if you really love this stuff, check out: UsingEnglish.Com's selection of over 250 free quizzes; and the SAT preparation quizzes for Basic Grammar, Intermediate Grammar, and Advanced Grammar.