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While doing some research on readability tests — ways to analyze the readability or linguistic complexity of a body of text — I came across The Blog Readability Test, an online tool that analyzes the readability level of blogs, expressed as an education level required to understand the blog. Although the site doesn’t specify its mechanism, it is likely an implementation of the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Formula which focuses on number of syllables per word, as well as sentence length.
Anyway, so I felt the need to run various popular blogs through this thing and report back on the results. Keep in mind that we’re talking about the complexity of the language used, not the target audience of the blogs. Anyway, I think you’ll be surprised by some of the results below!
| Blog | Reading Level |
|---|---|
| Arts & Letters Daily | Elementary School |
| Dilbert Blog | Elementary School |
| The Dullest Blog in the World | Elementary School |
| Ken Jennings | Elementary School |
| Pop Candy | Elementary School |
| 43 Folders | Junior High School |
| Mental_Floss Blog | Junior High School |
| Neatorama | Junior High School |
| Boing Boing | High School |
| Freakonomics Blog | High School |
| Ironic Sans | High School |
| McSweeney’s | High School |
| Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society | High School |
| Slashdot | High School |
| Hillary Clinton Blog | College (Undergrad) |
| Ars Technica | Genius |
| Damn Interesting | Genius |
Run your favorite blog through the tester and report back on the results!
Update - Readability Test Authors Embedding Advertising
Thanks to a post on Digital Inspiration, it’s now clear that the Reading Level test is embedding an advertising link (to “cash advance loans”) in the HTML code that shows the badge on your web site. Be careful! If you use their HTML embed code, I’d recommend removing the link to the ad at the bottom.
Grey Matters (click link in name): College (Undergrad)
posted by gmsc on 12-5-2007 at 12:07 pm
The Happiness Project www.happiness-project.com: elementary school. It’s nice for happiness to be accessible 8-)
posted by Debi on 12-5-2007 at 12:43 pm
I love how my rock music fan blog reads at a high school level!
posted by Kate on 12-5-2007 at 12:54 pm
Ran my own through the ringer and ended up with junior high school. Guess I’m in good company :-)
posted by john on 12-5-2007 at 12:57 pm
Checked several school websites I currently teach at: high school.
Checked my undergrad Marist College: genius.
I knew it!
posted by erika on 12-5-2007 at 12:58 pm
CONELRAD clocks in at College: Undergrad. Also, thanks for the link to ‘Damn Interesting’ - I’d never been there before, and I’d have to say it is.
posted by Roger on 12-5-2007 at 1:05 pm
Damn Interesting registers as Genius? That’s a nice boost for my ego! LOL
posted by Lisa on 12-5-2007 at 1:13 pm
Trivia Why’s (triviawhys.blogspot.com; click link in name for a daily dose of trivia): College (Undergrad)
posted by Trivia Why's Guy on 12-5-2007 at 1:57 pm
My own blog registers at genius??? That’s crazy! It’s a food blog!
(now for the shameless plug for my blog: glutenfreesox.blogspot.com)
posted by Karen on 12-5-2007 at 1:59 pm
Apparently my blog is elementary level. Even though I only update it twice a year and write so that the few dipsticks who still might read it can understand, I’m shamed for life.
Boo hoo.
posted by Sarah on 12-5-2007 at 2:21 pm
Pallimed checks in at College (PostGrad). Seems about right for a medical/academic blog about hospice and palliative care issues.
www.pallimed.org
posted by Christian Sinclair on 12-5-2007 at 2:39 pm
Like Lisa I was surrprised that Damn Interesting regesters as genius, not bad for a ninth-grader.
posted by John P on 12-5-2007 at 2:56 pm
Gizmodo = Junior High School
posted by JaneM on 12-5-2007 at 3:01 pm
Ran my blog through, it says College:Postgrad.I also haven’t updated in about a month. I probably should…
posted by Cat on 12-5-2007 at 3:06 pm
Mine scored at High School level. Ah ain’t reely shure how i managed to pull that one there off, but it shure is flatterin’. ;-)
posted by LyL on 12-5-2007 at 4:05 pm
My personal blog rated at: College, post grad. Go figure; since I have always tried to write at a level comparable to a 5th grader as was advised in college. Bty, I never passed my regents exam in English.
posted by Owen on 12-5-2007 at 4:29 pm
I think this thing is rigged. I checked the readability level OF THE WHATS YOUR BLOG READABILITY LEVEL BLOG and got “genius”. Even though there’s no copy, like, at all.
posted by Jill on 12-5-2007 at 5:19 pm
I’m sad (read: ashamed) to report that my own blog is rated “elementary.” I thought my own random ramblings were worth more than that!
Maybe my writing ability has suffered while living in Korea, where I’m forced to use English on a very basic level.
posted by austin on 12-5-2007 at 6:12 pm
For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s bad at all if a blog is rated as having an “Elementary School” reading level — in fact, I’d strive to make my blog as readable as possible (thus driving it to as basic a reading level as I could).
If your blog (which is public writing) is only accessible to those with high levels of education, you’ve eliminated a huge portion of your potential audience. There is nothing good about getting a “Genius” rating on this test! (Whatever that means, anyway…)
posted by Higgins on 12-5-2007 at 8:18 pm
Mine is elementary. Which is exactly the way I want it. Keep it simple.
posted by Miss Cellania on 12-5-2007 at 8:19 pm
English news sites comparisons:
cnn.com : Junior High
msnbc.msn.com : Junior High
nytimes.com : Junior High
latimes.com : Junior High
news.bbc.co.uk : College (post-grad)
guardian.co.uk : High School
dailymail.co.uk : Junior High
economist.com : Genius
posted by Axx on 12-5-2007 at 8:38 pm
My blog came up college (postgrad). It’s mostly comments on movies and books that I write just to practice writing, and it suffers from bad sentence structure and a tendency to overuse the same words in a single post. My high school graduate sister is probably the only one who reads it, and she has no problems with comprehension.
posted by Camille on 12-5-2007 at 9:08 pm
wicket, mine got college postgrad. I don’t ever write anything interesting, either, but I am adept at using commas to make my sentences really really long.
Here’s a result I enjoyed:
Littlegreenfootballs: College (undergrad)
Dailykos (High school).
take that libs!
posted by james on 12-6-2007 at 4:34 am
You covered most of my fav already, but here are some I like to look at periodically:
Wil Wheaton’s blog: jr high
howstuffworks.com : jr high
Cuteoverload (hehe): jr high
Mugglenet.com: high school
Israel Matzav: high school
Beyond BT: high school
Aish.com high school
Science Daily: College (undergrad)
Scientific American: College (postgrad)
My facebook page: Genius!!! yay!!
I guess being a mommy hasn’t fried my brain as much as I thought since my reading level is still up there. :)
posted by Yonit on 12-6-2007 at 5:08 am
I wonder if this tester takes into account blog comments. My favorite LJ elysesewell.livejournal.com/ was given an elementary reading level, but I find that really hard to believe. She does however get a huge amount of comments from idiots that write simple sentences.
You can also find out the readability of your own documents on Word! Isn’t that exciting. You have to go to options under tools and make sure that “Show readability score” is checked under Spelling and Grammar Check. Then you run the spelling and grammar check and after you finish, a window pops up saying the readability score of your document! (I apparently always write at a 12 grade level.) This is pretty useful for educators who want to find out how easily their students will read the material.
posted by Isaias Torres on 12-6-2007 at 8:55 am
My personal blog reads as a College (Post-Grad).
Pretty much all of the sites I visit read at Junior High or High… Interesting…
posted by neurotictim on 12-6-2007 at 11:01 am
What a shock to find out my work blog (all about stationery) is Genius and my personal blog is High School. I’m in good company though!
posted by kati on 12-6-2007 at 9:53 pm
Only a week old, and a genius already. :-)
posted by Joe on 12-7-2007 at 1:03 pm
World of Slippy apparently rates a high school reading level.
Harumph.
posted by Slippy Lane on 12-9-2007 at 5:28 am