Thursday 6 December 2007

A child of 11 could have written this blog!

I’ve just taken a Blog Readability Test.

I was quite surprised by my score of ‘High School’, because I’d have imagined that, in order to be understood by the average 11-16-year-old, a blog would have to be written in txt and full of :-) and ;-[ or like sooooo full of you know like kinda like cool stuff, know wot I mean? Yeah? Right? I’m like sooooo wo’evvah.

Had I achieved a ‘higher’ score, however, I think I’d have been a little worried that it meant my writing was obscure and impenetrable. The test very clearly states that it shows ‘what level of education is required to understand your blog’. This seems to me quite unambiguous. The higher the level of education required, the less lucid and intelligible your blog. It's not a test of the blogger's erudition, surely, but a test of its accessibilty to readers.

And yet, and yet, there are those out there (and I shan’t name names, but you know who you are) who are positively rejoicing (boasting even – would you credit it?) about the fact that their readers need to be of ‘Genius’-level intelligence to have the first clue what on earth they’re bloggin’ about. They even have a badge to prove it, which they display with no small modicum of pride. Maybe it's their not very coded way of saying 'this blog welcomes only those in academia - no riff-raff allowed'.

Hmmmmm. Maybe, not being very bright myself, I've completely misunderstood the purpose of this test. Perhaps my score means 'this blogger writes at sub-GCSE level, so if you're looking for anything interesting, please visit a Genius-level blog instead'.

I'm confused and slightly paranoid now.

If you want to test the readability of your blog and see what you make of all this nonsense, then click here (NB, I found I had to insert www. before my blog name to make it work.)

Leave a comment (if you dare to share), to let me know how you get on!

Oh, go on. Pleeeease?

8 comments:

monix said...

Juliet, you obviously do not have enough scarves, quilts and cakes on your blog to achieve the genius level! What a lot of baloney!

Juliet said...

Oh no! You're a genius?! This is getting worse - I'm feeling so excluded!

60GoingOn16 said...

Just humble junior high school for me. (Honestly, Juliet I should be out with the dogs by now . . .) So, my blog is perfect for young teenagers. Very appropriate.

But back to the topic: I put 6ogoingon16's low-level reading requirement down to spending 30 years at the coalface of journalism and copywriting, making sure that everything adhered to plain English guidelines. Note to self: must start using more long words and challenging syntax if I want to attract cleverclogs readers. A touch of Henry James or Bernard Levin perhaps?

Anonymous said...

Yup I too am a junior high school blogger. Well they do say you are as old as you feel and I'm definitely very young at heart. I was amazed at the two seconds it took to decide - perhaps it works like the hat in Harry Potter. I like to think I can speak easily to the young so I'm pleased. Teresa

Rob said...

Yes, I know who I am all right- but in a real sense do any of us know who are? Especially in the blogospshere,where I can pitch up as the simulacrum of a selkie, and exist only in the interstices of the interweb.
Well, that's my entry for pseuds' corner anyway. Seriously - and I know none of us are actually being serious - the readability thing is bobbins, isn't it? I think it just does it randomly.

Juliet said...

Teresa - I suspect you are entirely right about the hat thing!

Rob - now you've added words like 'interstices' and 'simulacrum' to my blog you have completely ruined its bland, junior-level tone!

(And I think you'll find that none of us 'IS' being serious . . . but some of us are undoubtedly picky editorial types!)

monix said...

Juliet, just to test the two-second test, I entered the URL of the most obscure technical blog I could find, which contained no words of fewer than 13 letters. It came out as Junior High!

Juliet said...

QED!