MS Word readability index? (take II)

Subject: MS Word readability index? (take II)
From: Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, "Pinkham, Jim" <Jim -dot- Pinkham -at- voith -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:11:17 -0400

Jim Pinkham notes: <<While I have no doubt there are professional educators who could and would take valid issue with that kind of sweeping dismissal...>>

They're welcome to do so, but the facts don't lie: a test that cannot distinguish between gibberish and valid text is not a useful text. Period. More convincingly still, the Tech. Comm. article I mentioned provided no evidence of any correlation between readability indices and reading comprehension in its literature review.

For the abovementioned editors to make a valid point, they need to cite studies that show such a correlation. Moreover, that correlation must be for text that has been edited to ensure that the quality of the text (rather than the mechanial statistics) is not a confounding factor. They must also rebut the reductio ad absurdum example of gibberish text or reversed word orders... which is not possible if you rely on a solely mechanical count of word and sentence lengths.

<<Both the infamous MS grammar checker and the Flesch readability index can be tools. As such, they can aid and abet the writer who judiciously uses them>>

_How_ can they help? If a sentence is eminently clear and readable despite having a high Flesch index, what purpose would revising the sentence serve? Conversely, if the sentence is unclear despite having a low Flesch index, what purpose would accepting the sentence serve. For readability indices to be useful, they must show a high and significant correlation with reading comprehension. In the absence of any such correlation, they're a waste of time and potentially misleading. Recall the old cliche about "lies, damned lies, and statistics"?
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Geoff Hart ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca

(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)

www.geoff-hart.com

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References:
RE: MS Word readability index?: From: Pinkham, Jim

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