WINNING THE WAR AGAINST UNREADABLE TEXTS: CLASSIC VERSUS NEW READABILITY FORMULAS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55197/qjssh.v7si3.1451Keywords:
comparative analysis, flesch reading ease, readability formulas, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)Abstract
In recent years, many texts of dissimilar genres, including academic and corporate, have been reported to be low in readability. Despite the widespread availability and frequent application of existing readability formulas, the ongoing battle against unreadable texts has not seen much improvement. This calls for a re-examination of existing formulas in order to understand the gaps and issues in readability. To do just that, the study then comparatively analysed a total of seven (7) classic and new readability formulas namely (i) Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test, (ii) Dale-Chall Formulas, (iii) Gunning Fog Index, (iv) Coleman-Liau Formulas, (v) Fry Graph, (vi) SMOG, and (vii) the New Dale-Chall formula, to unveil their similarities and differences. The study, which purposively sampled the formulas due to their practicality and wide acceptance by the public, looked into the formulas’ inclusion of language factors and the texts used for their development apart from their intended use. As a result, a consistent overreliance on sentence length and word difficulty as the two commonly used factors of readability was observed. Other than that, the study also found the lack of readability formulas to specifically assess non-academic texts. These findings suggest that though readability is not a new scholarly area, there may be still much to be explored by future research. This includes incorporating other language factors as well as developing genre-specific formulas, so as to move away from the overly tested factors apart from expanding the application of readability beyond just the academic settings. Having more accurate readability assessment tools would then support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through effective public communication.
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