Linsear Write
Linsear Write is a readability metric for English text, purportedly developed for the United States Air Force to help them calculate the readability of their technical manuals.[1] It is one of many such readability metrics, but is specifically designed to calculate the United States grade level of a text sample based on sentence length and the number of words used that have three or more syllables.[2]
The Formula
- Find a 100-word sample from your writing.
- Calculate the easy words (defined as two syllables or less) and place a number "1" over each word, even including a, an, the, and other simple words.
- Calculate the hard words (defined as three syllables or more) and place a number "3" over each word as pronounced by the dictionary.
- Multiply the number of easy words times "1."
- Multiply the number of hard words times "3."
- Add the two previous numbers together.
- Divide that total by the number of sentences.
- If your answer is >20, divide by "2," and that is your answer.
- If your answer is <20 or equal to 20, subtract "2," and then divide by "2." That is your answer.[3]
External links
- koRpus, a package for R, the Linsear Write formula is included in its functions readability() and readability.num().
- textstat, a Python module that has a Linsear Write method to calculate the grade level for text. An example: textstat.textstat.textstat.linsear_write_formula(text)
References
- ^ Arkansas Bar Association | What's New Archived 2008-01-11 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Linsear Write Readability Formula Archived 2008-03-24 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Readability Helps The Level