Seven formulas, one table
Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, SMOG, Coleman-Liau, ARI and Dale-Chall: the equation, what each weighs, its output, and what it is best for.
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What readability score should you aim for? The cheat sheet answers it in one glance
All seven formulas side by side with their equations, the Flesch score-to-grade-to-audience chart, sourced target ranges for eleven kinds of writing, and the five edits that move a score most. Print it and pin it.
PDF3 pagesPrintable
- 7
- formulas with equations
- 11
- content types with target ranges
- 6
- scores on the same paragraph, to show the spread
What is inside
Built for the work, not the feed.
Writers, UX writers, technical writers, content marketers, teachers, and anyone who just ran a readability check and wants to know what the number means.
The conversion chart
Flesch score to US grade to age to the kind of reading that lives there. Print it, or keep the PDF open beside the draft.
Targets by content type
Blogs, government, health, UI text, email, B2B, technical docs, fiction, academic, contracts, children's: the grade, the Reading Ease, the sentence length, and who says so.
The same paragraph, six scores
A worked example that shows why two tools disagree, and why you should never compare a Fog number with a Flesch-Kincaid one.
Five fixes that move a score
Split the long sentences, swap one long word, one idea per sentence, delete the qualifiers, turn passive to active. And what a score cannot tell you.
Look inside
These are the actual pages you get.
Screenshots are taken from the file itself, not a mock-up. What you see here is what lands in your inbox.
How to use it
Three steps, then it is yours.
- 1Score your draft with any checker (the free Orwellix checker scores every sentence).
- 2Find your content type on page 3 and read the target range.
- 3Apply the five fixes to the red sentences, then score again.
Questions
Before you download
01Where do the target ranges come from?
Published guidance: Nielsen Norman Group, the US federal plain-language guidelines, GOV.UK, NIH and AMA health-literacy guidance, and the NAIC model act for insurance policies. Every source is listed on the sheet.
02Why do two tools give me different scores?
Syllable counting is a heuristic and every tool does it slightly differently. The sheet shows the spread on one paragraph. Compare texts within one tool, not across tools.
03Is this the same as the free readability checker?
No. The checker measures your text. The cheat sheet tells you what the measurement means and where it should land.
Get the file
Every readability formula, the conversion chart, and the targets
Enter your name and email and it arrives in a minute. One email per new resource after that, and you can leave any time.
Prefer to skip the download? Start Orwellix free and do the editing inside the document instead.
