Readability test

Paste your text into the box below and your score will pop up in the yellow box. Use the scale below to see how your score measures up to famous writers, politicians and newspapers.

The test reads any use of . as a full stop. So remove email addresses and numbers (e.g. prices and dates) with a . to avoid getting a falsely high score.

We don't capture or store any of the text you enter into our readability test.

Your score

0 Sentences: 0
Avg sentence length: 0
0 – 20 Very difficult
The chemical name for Titin (no, we hadn’t heard of it either). It’s got 189,819 characters!
20 – 30 Heavy going
On the Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin
30 – 40 Difficult
Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzche
40 – 50 Challenging
Paradise Lost, John Milton
50 – 60 Moderately challenging
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
60 – 70 Plain English
A TED talk or interview by Brian Cox
70 – 80 Easy
A Harry Potter novel
80 – 90 Easy-peasy
A typical Buzzfeed list post
90 – 100 Super simple
Dr Seuss, The Cat in the Hat

What your score means

We've just checked your writing against the Flesch Kincaid reading ease score. That means we've made a quick calculation based on your average word and sentence length.

It's out of 100. The higher your score, the easier it is to read. The lower the score, the more difficult it is. That's not to say the higher the better – it all depends on your reader. As a rule of thumb for business writing, aim for a score of around 65.

Get a minus score? Yes, it is possible. In short - you need to start again.

Want to improve your score?

  1. Add more full stops.

  2. Replace long words (require, terminate, utilise) with short ones (need, stop/end, use).

  3. Change passive (The report was written) to active (I wrote the report).

REMEMBER – IT'S A BLUNT TOOL

The Flesch Kincaid reading ease test is a computer-based scan. It tells you how complicated your writing is, using an algorithm. It doesn't pick up on other things like structure, your tone of voice or mistakes – that's for a human to check. But it's a really great tool for highlighting how readable your writing is.

CAN WE HELP YOU SIMPLIFY YOUR WRITING?

Like Einstein said, "Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler." But that's not as simple as it sounds – especially in business writing, where subject matter is often complex. That's where we come in. If you'd like our top tips on how to boost your readability score, get in touch. We'd love to help you.