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Readability Checker

Check Your Writing Across Multiple Formulas and Make Your Message Clearer and More Accessible to Your Audience

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Can Your Readers Understand Your Writing?

A readability checker helps ensure that your writing isn’t too simplified or too complex for your readers. By giving you an approximate grade level or readability score, you can ensure that your content is easily understood by your target audience and that they’re getting the most value possible out of the information you’re sharing.

Which Readability Formulas are Best?

There is no “one size fits all” readability score. Different readability formulas work best with different types of content. Some are tuned toward educational content and grade levels while others are designed for more technical writing.

Ideal Readability Score for Google

The “prevailing wisdom” is WRONG about the reading score you should aim at for Google.

Knowing how your content or writing ranks on a readability index helps make your content more visually digestible to your readers. Resulting in content that is able to be understood and acted upon.

Good readability also keeps the search engines coming back for more and sites with a good readability score tend to rank better than those who do not. See our study on search engine ranking and readability.

Readability test score

Better Readability Starts Here

From Flesch Kincaid Grade Level, the Automated readability Index, the Coleman Liau Index, Gunning Fox, to everywhere in between, our readability checker analyzes your writing across a number of readability checkers, including:

Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease

The Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease formula is designed to assess the readability of a text by examining the average sentence length and syllables per word. Higher scores indicate easier to read text, This formula is a very popular tool for evaluate content accessibility.

RE = 206.835 – (1.015 x ASL) – (84.6 x ASW)

Where RE is Reading Ease, ASL is the average sentence length, and ASW is the average number of syllables per word.

Flesch Kincaid Grade Level

An extension of the reading ease formula. The Flesch Kincaid Grade Level translates the reading ease score to the equivalent U.S. school grade level. This enables authors to gauge the complexity of their writing for a specific audience, ensuring clear communication.

GL = (0.39 x ASL) + (11.8 x ASW) – 15.59

Where GL is Grade Level, ASL is the average sentence length, and ASW is the average number of syllables per word.

Gunning Fog Index

The Gunning Fog Index is a readability metric that accounts for sentence length and the number of complex words, which are defined as words with three or more syllables. A higher score indicates a more difficult text.

GFI = 0.4 x (ASL + PHW)

Where GFI is Gunning Fog Index, ASL is the average sentence length, and PHW is the percentage of hard words (words with three or more syllables).

SMOG Index

The Simplified Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) Index estimates the years of education needed to comprehend a text by analyzing the number of polysyllabic words in a sample. It is often used for evaluating the readability of healthcare and legal documents.

SMOG = 1.043 x √(30 x PDW) + 3.1291

Where SMOG is the SMOG Index and PDW is the number of polysyllabic words per 30 sentences.

Powers Sumner-Kearl

This formula assesses text readability by analyzing syllable patterns and word frequency data.

First get a sample of 100 words.
GL = 0.0778(ASL) + 0.0455(NS) – 2.2029

Where GL is grade level, ASL is average sentence length and NS is number of syllables

FORCAST Grade Level

The FORCAST Grade level formula measures text readability based on the frequency of single syllable words.

First get a sample of 150 words.
FORCAST = 20 – (NOSW / NTW)

Where NOSW is the number of one-syllable words, and NTW is the total number of words in the sample.

Coleman Liau Index

This formula considered the number of characters per word and sentences per 100 words to estimate the U.S. grade level required to understand a text. It is unique in that it doesnt rely on syllable counts making it an efficient formula.

CLI = (0.0588 x L) – (0.296 x S) – 15.8

Where CLI is the Coleman-Liau Index, L is the average number of characters per 100 words, and S is the average number of sentences per 100 words.

Automated readability index

This formula uses characters per word and words per sentence to determine the readability of a text. We convert the results to the U.S. Grade level.

ARI = (4.71 x CHW) + (0.5 x WPS) – 21.43

Where ARI is the Automated Readability Index, CHW is the average number of characters per word, and WPS is the average number of words per sentence.

Dale-Chall Readability Grade

This formula incorporates sentence length and percentage of difficult words, which are those not found in a pre defined list of 3,000 familiar words.

DC = (0.1579 x PDW) + (0.0496 x ASL)

Where DC is the Dale-Chall Readability Grade, PDW is the percentage of difficult words, and ASL is the average sentence length.

Spache Readability Grade

This formula is specifically designed to analyze texts aimed at young readers, typically grades 1 – 3. By looking at sentence length and unfamiliar words we can determine the rough age at which a reader would need to be for the text.

SRG = (ASL + PDW) / 2

Where SRG is the Spache Readability Grade, ASL is the average sentence length, and PDW is the percentage of difficult words.

Linsear Write Grade

The Linsear Write Grade formula evaluates text readability by focusing on the number of simple and complex words in a sample of 100 words.

First collect a sample passage of 100 words.
LWG = (SIMW + (COMW x 3))

Where LWG is the Linsear Write Grade, SIMW is the number of simple words, COMW is the number of complex words, and NTW is the total number of words in the sample.

Improve Readability With These Easy Writing Tips

Use shorter sentences and paragraphs

Breaking up content into shorter, more digestible sentences and paragraphs will make it easier to understand. Long sentences and paragraphs can be overwhelming for reading, increasing the likelihood they lose interest in the content.

Avoid technical jargon and complex vocabulary

Using technical jargon can push people away from your content, especially if they are new or unfamiliar with the topic. This kind of writing can be a real barrier to entry for new users. Try to use more simple and clear language to keep a reader engaged with the content and retain information.

Break up text with headings and subheadings

Scan non-English text and compare it to a host of foreign language, literature and journal databases for greater certainty of originality across language

Use active voice instead of passive voice

Sentences written in active voice are more direct and less confusing than that of passive voice; this will help readers to be more interested and engaged in the article.

Vary sentence structure

Using a mix of long and short sentences can add variety and interest to the writing. Varying the sentence structure can also help emphasize important points and create a more dynamic and engaging writing style.

Write for your intended audience

When writing, it’s essential to consider the audience and write in a way that is appropriate and accessible to them. Writing for an adult academic audience, for example, will require a different writing style than when writing for a younger audience.

Customers Love Originality.ai

We deeply understand your needs when it comes to identifying Original content and we are building features around our accurate AI detection and Plagiarism checking that users love!

After testing a number of AI content detection tools, I have found Originality.ai to be one of the best on the market. And now with the ability to detect paraphrased AI content, Orignality.ai is even more powerful. It’s basically my go-to detection tool at this point.

Glenn Gabe

SEO Consultant, GSQI.com

At Clicking Publish, producing original, high-quality content is essential to our success. To maintain these standards, it's important that we verify the work from freelancers and outsourced writers. Originality.ai makes this process easy for us by providing a simple and efficient tool that ensures the content we receive meets our expectations.

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Clicking Publish

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Founder, FatJoe

So what can we learn from this? In many cases, the tool tells the right story, even when it's nuanced, like in the case of AI content edited by humans.

Gael Breton

Founder, Authority Hacker

I realize that AI content isn't going away and with human editing, it can save time/make blog content better. That said, I've also had writers submit content that was 100% AI and never told me. A BIG no-no. This tool (Originality.ai) is what I'm using to stop that.

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OneHourProfessor.com

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At Clicking Publish, producing original, high-quality content is essential to our success. To maintain these standards, it's important that we verify the work from freelancers and outsourced writers. Originality.ai makes this process easy for us by providing a simple and efficient tool that ensures the content we receive meets our expectations.

Kityo Martin

Founder, Workaguide.com

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    1 Credit Scans 100 Words for Plagiarism and AI Checking
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  • Unlimited Scan History
  • Shareable Reports
  • File Upload
    docx, doc, pdf
  • API
  • Full Site Scans
  • Scan from URL
  • Team Management
  • Tag Scans
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In The Press

Originality.AI has been featured for its accurate ability to detect GPT-3, Chat GPT and GPT-4 generated content. See some of the coverage below…

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Featured by Leading Publications

Originality.ai did a fantastic job on all three prompts, precisely detecting them as AI-written. Additionally, after I checked with actual human-written textual content, it did determine it as 100% human-generated, which is important.

Vahan Petrosyan

searchenginejournal.com

I use this tool most frequently to check for AI content personally. My most frequent use-case is checking content submitted by freelance writers we work with for AI and plagiarism.

Tom Demers

searchengineland.com

After extensive research and testing, we determined Originality.AI to be the most accurate technology.

Rock Content Team

rockcontent.com

Jon Gillham, Founder of Originality.ai came up with a tool to detect whether the content is written by humans or AI tools. It’s built on such technology that can specifically detect content by ChatGPT-3 — by giving you a spam score of 0-100, with an accuracy of 94%.

Felix Rose-Collins

ranktracker.com

ChatGPT lacks empathy and originality. It’s also recognized as AI-generated content most of the time by plagiarism and AI detectors like Originality.AI

Ashley Stahl

forbes.com

Originality.AI Do give them a shot! 

Sri Krishna

venturebeat.com

For web publishers, Originality.AI will enable you to scan your content seamlessly, see who has checked it previously, and detect if an AI-powered tool was implored.

Industry Trends

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Frequently Asked Questions

Are readability tests and a readability checker the same thing?

You’ll hear them called by many different names including readability tests, readability scanner, readability index and similar terms. All of them refer to either the process itself or the resulting score that you get telling you how readable your content is. 

What is a good readability score?

The readability number you get will depend on your target audience. If you’re writing a presentation for a group of nuclear engineers, you’d obviously want a higher readability score than if you were presenting to a group of college-bound high school students. Plus, different readability checkers look at different parts of your writing or web page to determine readability – some look at sentence length, others look at the words used. This can help you understand the “big picture” of the readability of your content.

What is the readability index? 

A readability index is the measurement of how understandable your text is to your target audience. Different experts have taken different approaches to measure this, ranging from the number of complex syllables in a word to the number of words in a sentence. No one way is better than the other, but all of them are unique and give you a 360-degree view of how your writing is evaluated according to similar pieces of content in terms of readability.

Why should I check my work against so many readability formulas?

Getting the big picture of the readability of your content is vital not just to improve audience engagement, but also for your organic ranking in the search engines. When people can read, understand and act on your content, they’re more likely to recommend it, share it with others and consistently come back for more. Having a wide range of readability tests allow you to make sure that every piece you write is the best it can be.

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