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| The '''Flesch/Flesch–Kincaid readability tests''' are [[readability test]]s designed to indicate comprehension difficulty when reading a passage of contemporary academic [[English language|English]]. There are two tests, the '''Flesch Reading Ease''', and the '''Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level'''. Although they use the same core measures (word length and sentence length), they have different weighting factors. The results of the two tests correlate approximately inversely: a text with a comparatively high score on the Reading Ease test should have a lower score on the Grade Level test. [[Rudolf Flesch]] devised both systems while [[J. Peter Kincaid]] developed the latter for the [[United States Navy]]. Such readability tests suggest that many Wikipedia articles may be "too sophisticated" for their readers.<ref name="KA-20120924">{{cite web |last=Anderson |first=Kent |title=Wikipedia’s Writing — Tests Show It’s Too Sophisticated for Its Audience |url=http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/09/24/wikipedias-writing-tests-show-its-too-sophisticated-for-its-audience/ |date=September 24, 2012 |publisher=[[Scholarly Kitchen]] |accessdate=December 7, 2012 }}</ref>
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| ==History==
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| "The Flesch–Kincaid" (F–K) Reading grade level was developed under contract to the United States Navy in 1975 by J. Peter Kincaid and his team.<ref name="kincaidetal1975">Kincaid, J.P., Fishburne, R.P., Rogers, R.L., & Chissom, B.S. (1975). Derivation of New Readability Formulas (Automated Readability Index, Fog Count, and Flesch Reading Ease formula) for Navy Enlisted Personnel. Research Branch Report 8-75. Chief of Naval Technical Training: Naval Air Station Memphis.</ref> Other related United States Navy research directed by Kincaid delved into high tech education (for example, the electronic authoring and delivery of technical information);<ref name="Kincaid1988">{{cite journal |author=Kincaid JP, Braby R, Mears J |year=1988 |title=Electronic authoring and delivery of technical information |journal=Journal of Instructional Development |volume=11 |pages=8–13}}</ref> usefulness of the Flesch–Kincaid readability formula;<ref name="McClure1987">{{cite journal |author=McClure G |title=Readability formulas: Useful or useless. (an interview with J. Peter Kincaid.) |year=1987 |journal=IEEE Transactions on Professional Communications |volume=30 |pages=12–15}}</ref> computer aids for editing tests;<ref name="Kincaid1983">{{cite journal |author=Kincaid JP, Braby R, Wulfeck WH II |year=1983 |title=Computer aids for editing tests |journal=Educational Technology |volume=23 |pages=29–33}}</ref> illustrated formats to teach procedures;<ref name="Brabyetal1982">{{cite journal |author=Braby R, Kincaid JP, Scott P, McDaniel W |year=1982 |title=Illustrated formats to teach procedures |journal=IEEE Transactions on Professional Communications |volume=25 |pages=61–66}}</ref> and the Computer Readability Editing System (CRES).<ref name="Kincaid1981">{{cite journal |author=Kincaid JP, Aagard JA, O'Hara JW, Cottrell LK |year=1981 |title=Computer Readability Editing System |journal=IEEE Transactions on Professional Communications |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=38–42}} (also reported in Aviation Week and Space Technology, 11 January 1982, pp. 106-107.)</ref>
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| The F-K formula was first used by the [[United States Army]] for assessing the difficulty of technical manuals in 1978 and soon after became the [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] [[military standard]]. The [[Commonwealth of Pennsylvania]] was the first state in the United States to require that [[automobile insurance]] policies be written at no higher than a [[ninth grade]] level (14 to 15 years of age) of reading difficulty, as measured by the F-K formula. This is now a common requirement in many other states and for other legal documents such as insurance policies.<ref name = McClure1987/>
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| ==Flesch Reading Ease==
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| In the Flesch Reading Ease test, higher scores indicate material that is easier to read; lower numbers mark passages that are more difficult to read. The formula for the Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES) test is
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| :<math>
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| 206.835 - 1.015 \left( \frac{\text{total words}}{\text{total sentences}} \right) - 84.6 \left( \frac{\text{total syllables}}{\text{total words}} \right).
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| </math><ref>http://www.editcentral.com/gwt1/EditCentral.html</ref>
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| Scores can be interpreted as shown in the table below.
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| {| class="wikitable" border="1"
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| |-
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| ! Score
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| ! Notes
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| |-
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| | 90.0–100.0
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| | easily understood by an average 11-year-old student
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| |-
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| | 60.0–70.0
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| | easily understood by 13- to 15-year-old students
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| |-
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| |0.0–30.0
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| |best understood by university graduates
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| |}
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| ''[[Reader's Digest]]'' magazine has a readability index of about 65, ''[[Time magazine|Time]]'' magazine scores about 52, an average 6th grade student's (a 12-year-old) written assignment has a readability test of 60–70 (and a reading grade level of 6–7), and the ''[[Harvard Law Review]]'' has a general readability score in the low 30s. The highest (easiest) readability score possible is around 120 (e.g. every sentence consisting of only two one-syllable words). The score does not have a theoretical lower bound. It is possible to make the score as low as wanted by arbitrarily including words with many syllables. This sentence, for example, taken as a reading passage unto itself, has a readability score of about thirty. The sentence "The Australian platypus is seemingly a hybrid of a mammal and reptilian creature." scores 24.4 as it has 26 syllables and 13 words. While [[Amazon.com|Amazon]] calculates the text of ''[[Moby-Dick]]'' as 57.9,<ref>{{cite web|title=Book Lies: Readability is Impossible to Measure
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| |author=Gabe Habash |date=July 20, 2011|url=http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/PWxyz/2011/07/20/book-lies-readability-is-impossible-to-measure/}}
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| </ref> one particularly long sentence about sharks in chapter 64 has a readability score of −146.77.<ref>Melville, Herman. "Chapter 64: Stubb's Supper." Moby Dick. Lit2Go Edition. 1851. Web. <http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/42/moby-dick/745/chapter-64-stubbs-supper/>. August 16, 2013.<br><br>''"Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship’s decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiant butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other’s live meat with carving-knives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks, also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away under the table at the dead meat; and though, were you to turn the whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same thing, that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties; and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave ships crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to be decently buried; and though one or two other like instances might be set down, touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do most socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there no conceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countless numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea."''<br></ref>
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| [[United States Department of Defense|The U.S. Department of Defense]] uses the Reading Ease test as the standard test of readability for its documents and forms.<ref>{{cite conference |url=http://archive.is/20120630204938/http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~callan/Papers/cikm01b.ps |title=A Statistical Model for Scientific Readability |author=Luo Si, ''et al.'' |date=5–10 November 2001 |publisher=CIKM '01 |location=Atlanta, GA, USA}}</ref> Florida requires that [[life insurance]] policies have a Flesch Reading Ease score of 45 or greater.<ref>[http://law.onecle.com/florida/insurance/627.4145.html "Readable Language in Insurance Policies"]</ref>
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| Use of this scale is so ubiquitous that it is bundled with popular [[word processing]] programs and services such as [[KWord]], [[IBM Lotus Symphony]], [[Microsoft Office Word]], [[WordPerfect]], and [[Word Pro|WordPro]].
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| Polysyllabic words affect this score significantly more than they do the grade level score.
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| ==Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level== <!-- Redirect to section from [[Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level]] -->
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| These readability tests are used extensively in the field of [[education]]. The "Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level Formula" translates the 0–100 score to a [[Education in the United States#School grades|U.S. grade level]], making it easier for teachers, parents, librarians, and others to judge the readability level of various books and texts. It can also mean the number of years of education generally required to understand this text, relevant when the formula results in a number greater than 10. The grade level is calculated with the following formula:
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| :<math>
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| 0.39 \left ( \frac{\mbox{total words}}{\mbox{total sentences}} \right ) + 11.8 \left ( \frac{\mbox{total syllables}}{\mbox{total words}} \right ) - 15.59
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| </math>
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| The result is a number that corresponds with a grade level. For example, a score of 8.2 would indicate that the text is expected to be understandable by an average student in year 8 in the [[United Kingdom]] or an 8th grade student in the United States. The sentence, "The Australian platypus is seemingly a hybrid of a mammal and reptilian creature" is a 13.1 as it has 26 syllables and 13 words.
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| The lowest grade level score in theory is −3.40, but there are few real passages in which every sentence consists of a single one-syllable word. ''[[Green Eggs and Ham]]'' by [[Dr. Seuss]] comes close, averaging 5.7 words per sentence and 1.02 syllables per word, with a grade level of −1.3. (Most of the 50 used words are [[Syllable|monosyllabic]]; "anywhere", which occurs 8 times, is the only exception.)
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| ==See also==
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| *[[Gunning fog index]]
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| *[[Dale-Chall Readability Formula]]
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| *[[Coleman-Liau Index]]
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| *[[Automated Readability Index]]
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| *[[SMOG (Simple Measure Of Gobbledygook)]]
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| *[[Accessible publishing]]
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| *[[Readability]]
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| ==References==
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| {{Reflist|2}}
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| ===Further references===
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| * {{Cite journal |author=[[Rudolf Flesch|Flesch R]] |year=1948 |title=A new readability yardstick |journal=Journal of Applied Psychology |volume=32 |pages=221–233}}
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| * [[J. Peter Kincaid|Kincaid JP]], Fishburne RP Jr, Rogers RL, Chissom BS (1975). "[http://digitalcollections.lib.ucf.edu/u?/IST,26253 Derivation of new readability formulas (Automated Readability Index, Fog Count and Flesch Reading Ease Formula) for Navy enlisted personnel<nowiki>]</nowiki>]". ''Research Branch Report 8-75, Millington, TN: Naval Technical Training, U. S. Naval Air Station, Memphis, TN''.
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| * {{Cite journal |author=Farr JN, [[James J. Jenkins|Jenkins JJ]], Paterson DG |year=1951 |title=Simplification of Flesch Reading Ease Formula |journal=Journal of Applied Psychology |volume=35 |number=5 |month=October |pages=333–337}}
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| ==External links==
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| * [http://plainlanguage.com/newreadability.html PlainLanguage.com] — All About Readability
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| * [http://www.impact-information.com/impactinfo/readability02.pdf The Principles of Readability by William H. DuBay] — a brief introduction to readability research
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| * [http://www.gnu.org/software/diction/ Style and Diction] — free software by the [[GNU Project]] that calculates the Flesch–Kincaid readability score
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| * [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/feb/12/state-of-the-union-reading-level The state of our union is … dumber] — Analysis of the State of the Union
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| {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2010}}
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| {{DEFAULTSORT:Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test}}
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| [[Category:Readability tests]]
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| [[de:Lesbarkeitsindex#Flesch Reading Ease]]
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