NOTE: this software is for Classic Mac OS (eg: OS 9) and cannot be used on Mac OS X.
Nisus Writer Classic is no longer for sale. This page is only for archival purposes.
Flesch Reading Ease
Rudolf Flesch was trained as a lawyer in his native Vienna. He came to the United States in 1938 where he received his Ph.D. at Columbia University. Among his numerous books are The Art of Plain Talk, Say What You Mean, The Art of Clear Thinking, and The Art of Readable Writing (Harper & Row). This explanation of how to determine the Reading Ease of a text was culled from The Art of Readable Writing.
There are two aspects to readability: ease of reading and interest. The first is determined by the structure of words and sentences; the use of "personal words" or "personal sentences" constitutes the other. The Flesch reading ease score found in the window that appears when you choose Word Count... from the Tools menu represents the first of these and is determined by the following steps:
- Nisus Writer counts the words in the entire document. Contractions,
hyphenated words and numbers (such as dates and dollar Amounts, etc.)
are each counted as one word.
- Nisus Writer computes the average sentence length, counting units of text as a sentence, even if they end in a colon, semicolon, or return.
- Nisus Writer counts the syllables in the entire document. This syllable counting uses a special algorithm which, although not perfect, is quite accurate for the English language. It divides the number of syllables by the number of words and multiplies by 100 to get the number of syllables per 100 words. Although the syllable number in numbers and symbols should be counted as if these were pronounced when read aloud (i.e. 1991-nineteen ninety one = 2, 2, 1 syllables) this is not done in Nisus at this time.
- Nisus Writer multiplies the average sentence length by 1.015, then multiplies the number of syllables per 100 words by .846, adds them, and subtracts the sum from 206.835. The result is the Reading Ease Score. The scale ranges from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the easier it is to read.
The Word Count window counts any text in footnotes/endnotes, but not headers/footers, placed page graphics or the graphics layer.
Reading Grade Level
The reading grade level is based on the Fog index. This is calculated by determining the average sentence length plus the percentage of long words with all of this multiplied by 0.4. A long word is one with more than two syllables.
The reading grade level score is designed to indicate what level of education, on average, would be required to comprehend your document. It is not an indication of the skill of the author, except insofar as the author may be trying to reach an audience at a particular level. Persons writing children's books, however well educated they may be, should strive to keep that score fairly low!
More about word count.
To the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).
To the Tips Table of Contents.
