What’s Your Blog’s Reading Level?

By March 21, 2008

Jon W. over at Banner, Sword, and Shield has a post about a fun website that gauges a blog’s reading level (Jon got it from Emily at Mormon Times). Here’s what I get when I type in a few of my favorite blogs:

Juvenile Instructor: College (Postgrad) Genius

blog readability test

By Common Consent: High School

Times and Seasons: High School

DMI: College (Postgrad)

Faith Promoting Rumor: High School

Mormon Wasp: High School

New Cool Thang: High School

Mormon Matters: High School

Mormon Metaphysics: High School

Religion in American History: Genius (They are a bunch of PhD.s, after all)

Rather than embarrass Jon here, I’ll let the curious reader go to his blog to see his reading level. 

If I missed your blog, what’s your reading level?

Article filed under Polls/Surveys

Comments

  1. LOL. What’s funny is that my old blog got a Junior High Level. Who said reading philosophy was hard?

    Comment by Clark — March 21, 2008 @ 11:57 am

  2. LOL, that’s awesome Clark.

    Comment by David G. — March 21, 2008 @ 12:01 pm

  3. […] A site to guage your blog’s readability. The current one gets a High School rating whereas the old one gets listed as Junior High! Who said reading philosophy was hard? Didn’t you discuss Heidegger and Derrida in 7th Grade? (HT: Juvenile Instructor) […]

    Pingback by Blog’s Reading Level : Mormon Metaphysics — March 21, 2008 @ 12:03 pm

  4. Ha! Run it on the individual posts and Jonathan Green’s latest gets a genius rating; my latest gets the post-grad nod.

    What’s Juvie’s rating minus the extensive quotations?

    Comment by Ardis Parshall — March 21, 2008 @ 12:10 pm

  5. Er, /pretentiousness.

    Comment by Ardis Parshall — March 21, 2008 @ 12:10 pm

  6. No need to be so defensive, Ardis. Times and Seasons, as a whole, brings the good news to the masses better than the JI. 😀

    Comment by David G. — March 21, 2008 @ 12:18 pm

  7. Didn’t mean to sound defensive, David — aren’t you in on the standing joke of T&S’s pretentiousness? How in the world are we ever supposed to maintain that reputation with a high school rating? C’mon, give us a break and tell us we use too many long sentences!

    Comment by Ardis Parshall — March 21, 2008 @ 12:26 pm

  8. I just think that T&S was lucky that BCC also got a High School rating. 8)

    Comment by David G. — March 21, 2008 @ 12:30 pm

  9. I?m not sure what to make of this. My blog gets a ?genius? rating. I always hoped my blog was accessible. If the rating is justified, I?m failing horribly.
    Regardless, this was a fun exercise.

    Comment by Latter-Day Sustainablist — March 21, 2008 @ 1:06 pm

  10. My former blog (on Blogger) received a Genius rating. Of course, the blog has been closed down, so I suppose it does take a genius (and/or a hacker) to be able to read it.

    Comment by Justin — March 21, 2008 @ 1:23 pm

  11. My blog as a whole gets a high school rating, but each individual post gets a genius rating. I wonder how they figure this out.

    Comment by Keri Brooks — March 21, 2008 @ 1:51 pm

  12. The way these are usually calculate is by calculating the number of words not in a standard use dictionary (i.e. jargon or difficult synonyms); sentence length; number of prefixes and suffixes added to words rather than alternative words; and finally ambiguous antecedents — although that’s hit and miss when done by a computer)

    That’s why I was so surprised that I scored so low. I suspect that’s because I go out of my way to avoid run on sentences. It still happens. But it’s something I’ve consciously worked on over the years. Also while I have a lot of jargon I guess I use enough common words to balance it.

    Comment by Clark — March 21, 2008 @ 2:55 pm

  13. To add. In general these guides are useful. One does have to be careful with them obviously. However often we can replace words with common words that have a similar meaning. We can avoid long sentences. Indeed that almost always makes your point easier to follow. And ambiguous phrases or antecedents are just elements of bad writing.

    Of course I’ll admit I often write fast enough so as to have tons of typos and be too wordy. It takes time to be succinct and clear.

    Comment by Clark — March 21, 2008 @ 2:58 pm

  14. My history blog rated GENIUS.

    That’s something worth writing home about, I suppose.

    Comment by Jana — March 21, 2008 @ 3:09 pm

  15. calculating the number of words not in a standard use dictionary

    Clarkk, so em Iy hilping raiz hte reedink lvel ef Joovnile Instructator buye mye yus ev wirds gnot eenn uh stindrd yoos dikshuneery? (Kno knede tuh htank miy, Dayvid.)

    (and when I’ve crossed the threshold from silliness to obnoxiousness, hit the delete key and send me to my corner)

    Comment by Ardis Parshall — March 21, 2008 @ 3:12 pm

  16. Ardish, lol.

    Jana, that interview with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich was pretty genius.

    Comment by David G. — March 21, 2008 @ 3:13 pm

  17. Well, Ray got a Postgrad rating for his “Things of my Soul” blog, but my family blog got a Genius rating! (actually, I think that’s suspect. I don’t post there as much as the other extended family members and I have a number of lovely nieces who can’t spell worth beans, but we post lots of pictures!)

    Comment by kevinf — March 21, 2008 @ 3:38 pm

  18. In a few days I’ll have my interview with Patty Limerick posted, which might be of interest to a few of you genius-types. 🙂

    Comment by Jana — March 21, 2008 @ 3:39 pm

  19. Nice score, Jana. I’ll be looking for it.

    Comment by David G. — March 21, 2008 @ 3:41 pm

  20. Mine was rated “IMPENETRABLE”. (Just kidding.)

    Comment by Jim Cobabe — March 21, 2008 @ 4:04 pm

  21. Now now David lets not throw stones. Newspapers are written to a 3rd grade reading level generally so I am just appealing to the masses…

    Darn I am going have to pick my end up, goes to quote Bushman some more…

    Comment by JonW — March 21, 2008 @ 5:04 pm

  22. PS I stole it from Mormon Times so I did not even find it originally ;o)

    Comment by JonW — March 21, 2008 @ 5:05 pm

  23. Hehe, blame it on your journalism background. 🙂

    Thanks for the info on the Mormon Times. I’ll put that in the initial post.

    Comment by David G. — March 21, 2008 @ 5:17 pm

  24. Pretty fun. You can rate posts and categories too. I tried a few categories at NCT and they ranged from post-grad to junior high reading levels.

    So which is more desirable? Easy to read isn’t a bad thing after all…

    Comment by Geoff J — March 21, 2008 @ 5:25 pm

  25. And I stole it from Blognitive Dissonance…so you can trace the source from there. 🙂

    Comment by EmWJ — March 21, 2008 @ 5:48 pm

  26. The trail gets even longer…

    Comment by JonW — March 21, 2008 @ 5:50 pm

  27. Mine rated “German.”

    Comment by BHodges — March 21, 2008 @ 5:51 pm

  28. I think we have Stan and David G. to thank for our college (postgrad) rating.

    Comment by Christopher — March 21, 2008 @ 6:41 pm

  29. Elementary school! I win!

    Comment by Susan M — March 21, 2008 @ 7:11 pm

  30. Yay I am not the only one. The rest of you are booger butts. Nahhhaah 😛

    Comment by JonW — March 22, 2008 @ 12:01 am

  31. The following post on my personal blog, announcing my daughter’s blog to family and ward friends, got a “Genius” rating:

    “Check it out. [link]

    I would like to blame her silliness on her mother, but all of you know Mama and me too well to believe that.”

    I’m not convinced the rating works for individual posts – or Susan M’s blog must be written in crayons and illustrated with stick figures. *grin*

    I think they probably use a words/sentence measurement, since my sentences are not exactly models of restraint and concise, focused verbiage – a characteristic about which I couldn’t care less, since I am in it only to raise my overall rating to Genius level and compete with all of the erudite intellectuals blogging in the elite air of the bloggernacle. (Maybe that sentence will boost your rating.)

    Comment by Ray — March 22, 2008 @ 12:01 am

  32. Mormon Mommy Wars got an elementary school rating, as well.

    Comment by Ray — March 22, 2008 @ 12:04 am

  33. My wife’s blog got an elementary school rating, but each of her posts that wasn’t structured in a list or announcement form – where she wrote about one particular topic in a standard “English class” format – was rated “Post-Grad” or “Genius”.

    Interesting.

    Comment by Ray — March 22, 2008 @ 12:14 am

  34. I just checked and this post receives a Junior High rating. (I guess congratulations are in order for making it very readable…)

    Comment by Geoff J — March 22, 2008 @ 10:00 pm

  35. Haha, thanks Geoff.

    Comment by David G. — March 22, 2008 @ 10:04 pm

  36. […] to the present. I was tripping across the internet when I encountered this post by David G who linked us all to a site that will check the reading level of your blog. Well, of course I had […]

    Pingback by Well, thank you, TDZK. « Musings of a Housewife — March 23, 2008 @ 6:44 am

  37. Guess we at FPR aren’t as witty as we think we are. Great fun though.

    Comment by lxxluthor — March 23, 2008 @ 4:24 pm

  38. I feel better about myself after reading Religion in American History’s rating.

    Comment by John Turner — March 24, 2008 @ 8:40 am

  39. If you want to draw from the widest audience, it helps to have a lower reading level. Since the average adult american has about an 8th grade education, “Junior High” level would likely garner the biggest audience.

    Comment by Bookslinger — March 24, 2008 @ 6:26 pm

  40. Thus all the readers of my posts on Derrida. (grin)

    I actually do think, however, that the lower the grade that typically the easier it is to read.

    Comment by Clark — March 24, 2008 @ 7:28 pm

  41. Am I the only one that got rated “Undergrad”?

    Comment by Chris — March 27, 2008 @ 2:07 pm

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