I eagerly ran the blog readability test on this blog, and got this result:
This is the same as www.bbc.co.uk, which is fine, but you know something? We don’t have junior high schools where I live, or in most of the world. So the test throws up another question:
How about a ‘cultural blindness’ test?
Your score would be reduced for the following:
- Mentions of ‘baseball card functionality’ in talent management systems (clue: who else plays baseball?)
- Use of national slang/argot/military/sporting metaphor (please stop going the whole 8.2 metres – see here for more)
- References to adverts in your country (I recently heard a podcast that made reference to adverts for a slew of Canadian adverts. Guess what? It didn’t help me.)
- Patronizing references to foreign countries and how quaint / unpleasant, hot / cold they are (something of a British speciality)
- Good cheer wishes for local holidays (yes, that includes Halloween)
The results could be rendered on this entirely comprehensible international scale:
People, the internet is a big place. Wherever you are writing, most of your potential audience will not understand it unless you keep the cultural blinkers off.
Have a pukka weekend.
Subscribe
4 responses so far ↓
jeremy // 30 November 2007 at 10:23 pm |
I ran bandwagoning through the test and got ‘genius’. Clearly the thing is flawed – you blog is much more readable than mine.
donaldhtaylor // 4 December 2007 at 10:05 am |
Hi Jeremy
I’m not sure the test is flawed. You may be writing like a genius, but asking your audience to read like one is risky. They typically have little patience and they may not have English as their first language.
I ran my second posting from this blog (http://donaldhtaylor.wordpress.com/2007/04/24/do-competencies-need-to-begin-with-a-big-bang/) through the readability test. It was rated as ‘undergraduate level’.
The conclusion: either I’m dumbing down (from undergraduate to junior high) or I’m learning to write more accessibly. I opt for the latter.
Cheers
Don
Rina Tripathi // 11 April 2008 at 9:43 am |
Mine came as Elementary school is it good or bad? I guess learning should be easy and unless we are doing a thesis for P.hd it can be lucid and flowing? Don’t know really. No wreading thse very crisp blogs has become a nice distraction for me. Great one!
week 12 | Multi-Media Journalism // 26 October 2008 at 6:06 am |
[...] written from another cultural perspective is not an easy task in mainstream media. Generally, cultural blinkers are put on all international news. I’m not saying this is good or bad, it’s just the default [...]