The 10 Most Readable Blogs (That I Like)
January 9th, 2008Yesterday there was a post on PickTheBrain titled Improve Your Writing with a Conversation Tone. What I found most interesting about it was the link to the Readability index calculator, which scans text you enter in order to calculate the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade level.
The Reading Ease score is typically 90 for comics and 10 for legalese. Time magazine is about a 52, and Reader’s Digest is about a 65. The Grade level is theoretically the grade you have to reach in order to understand the text, but it’s not perfect: Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham gives a grade level of -1.3. Both Reading Ease and Grade are based on the number of words per sentence and the number of syllables per word, but these measures are weighted differently by the two formulas.
When you write posts that a 10th grader can understand, that doesn’t mean you’re dumbing them down because you think your audience couldn’t make it through 10th grade. It means you’re avoiding pretentious words and convoluted sentences so you sound more like a person and less like a textbook. The less effort it takes people to figure out what you’re trying to say, the more they can ponder what you’re saying. Of course, some situations require complex language, but in general, we should try to avoid it.
I’m subscribed to 48 blogs, and I decided to put them to the test. Out of the 48, I find 13 of them especially enjoyable to read, and I find 8 of them especially painful to read (I read those 8 either because they have very good information, or they’re very popular and I’m still trying to figure out why). It occurred to me that the blogs I find enjoyable to read would probably have high readability scores, so I decided to conduct an interesting (though highly unscientific) experiment.
To save time, I only tested the 13 most enjoyable blogs and the 8 least enjoyable blogs (in a slightly narcissistic move, I included my own blog among the most enjoyable). I used the most recent post from each blog, unless it was a guest post, contained a lot of quoted material, was too short, or was otherwise unusual, in which case I moved on to the next most recent post.
The results were what I expected for the most part: the blogs I liked generally had the highest readability scores, while the blogs I didn’t like generally had the lowest scores. Here are the rankings for the top ten most readable blogs I subscribe to, after filtering out two that I don’t like reading, sorted by Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score (with a secondary sort by Grade level and a tertiary sort by blog name).
#1: brip blap (Reading Ease score: 64; Grade level: 8)
#2: zenhabits (Reading Ease score: 62; Grade level: 8)
#3: Seth’s Blog (Reading Ease score: 61; Grade level: 9)
#4: Hunter Nuttall . com (Reading Ease score: 60; Grade level: 9)
#5 (tie): Conrad Hees’ Blog (Reading Ease score: 57; Grade level: 9)
#5 (tie): Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog (Reading Ease score: 57; Grade level: 9)
#7: Early Retirement Extreme (Reading Ease score: 56; Grade level: 11)
#8: Skelliewag.org (Reading Ease score: 52; Grade level: 10)
#9: Tim Ferriss’s 4-Hour Workweek and Lifestyle Design Blog (Reading Ease score: 50; Grade level: 10)
#10: On Moneymaking (Reading Ease score: 50; Grade level: 11)
(Had the list been sorted by Grade level before Reading Ease score, Early Retirement Extreme would be pushed down to #9.)
The blogs I’m subscribed to that I don’t take pleasure in reading had Reading Ease scores around 40, and Grade levels around 14. So the message is clear: be easy to understand, and people will like listening to you.
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January 9th, 2008 at 11:05 am
The rules I try to follow are.
1) Don’t use a Latin/import word if an English word exists.
2) Have a large vocabulary.
3) One sentence should express only one thought.
4) Break any rule that does not improve readability.
5) If a word exist that covers the meaning of several words, use it.
There are probably more rules.
There’s a good article on writing by George Orwell. Before I read that I too was guilty of pretentious words and overly long convoluted sentences. However, I fully agree that that does not imply genius on part of the writer, rather it suggests that he is either lazy or pretentious.
January 9th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Well, even thought I know you were considering readability and not necessarily quality of writing, I am quite amazed to be included in a list like that! There is not a blog on there (with the exception of one I simply haven’t read before) that I don’t like and seek to copy.
I had some thoughts on writing, referencing George Orwell as ERE mentioned above, so forgive me for linking to it: 10 suggestions for better writing. I have been greatly inspired by a number of writers, but Orwell wrote some doozies. “Animal Farm” and “Down and Out in Paris and London” are masterpieces.
My one easy tip, via Stephen King and many other writers: adverbs are unnecessary 99.99% of the time!
Thanks again for including me. As I write more, I am beginning to love the craft of writing more and more - so hearing that I’m readable is a true compliment!
January 9th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Thanks for these writing tips, guys!
Steve, can you elaborate on the adverb rule? I’m having a hard time understanding this. Consider these examples:
- He defeated his enemy.
- He easily defeated his enemy.
- He barely defeated his enemy.
The adverb is very important here! Is this one of the 0.01% instances, or are you saying the adverb should be omitted anyway, or that it should be replaced with other words, e.g., “He defeated his enemy with ease?”
January 10th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Wow Hunter! I must say, not only am I very flattered to be included in your top 10 (let alone to tie with the likes of Steve Pavlina), but I am thoroughly impressed with the quality of this article and the amount of work that you obviously put into it.
Thank you very much and keep up the GREAT work!
You are on your way Hunter…this post was great.
If I may give my 2 cents on writing since that seems to be the topic here:
My rule for becoming a great writer is to begin reading early in life and as often as possible. I realize for most people it is too late for this, but the point is that good writing (in my opinion) is learned largely by osmosis!
I am sure many will disagree with this, but it is my opinion none the less.
Thanks again!
January 10th, 2008 at 3:07 am
Hunter,
Several months ago you left a comment on one of my blogs. From seeing your “business” and the quality of writing you used in your comment, I knew you had it in you to be a great blogger.
Your passion for the written word is obvious, as is your desire to better yourself and others.
Congratulations on your blog. And, welcome to blogosphere!
It’s late, I’m tired, but I will be back later to read all of your posts.
January 10th, 2008 at 5:32 am
[...] though, that really caught my attention. Hunter Nuttall has a post up mentioning my blog: “The 10 Most Readable Blogs (That I Like)“. What made this an unusual post was that it compared me with a few bloggers you may have [...]
January 10th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
@Conrad, I wasn’t surprised at all that you were in the top ten, but I was surprised that Steve Pavlina ranked so well for readability. Show me a 9th grader who can understand his articles about subjective reality! I guess that goes to show that even complex thoughts can be expressed simply.
@Barbara, seeing the interaction you had with commenters on your blogs is part of what made me want to have my own blog in the first place. I used to think blogs were just about people listening to themselves talk (maybe that was true at one time). Glad to see you here, and I’ll be back to your blog as well.
January 11th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
In the comments of another post, Marc Woolf said:
“Hunter -
Enjoyed your post on readability scores, unscientific as they may be … curious as to how you would score the readability of my blog.
Thanks!”
Marc, the Readability index calculator can be found at
http://www.standards-schmandards.com/exhibits/rix/index.php
You just paste in the text you want to analyze, click “Calculate score,” and it tells you the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade level.
I ran it on your latest post (”Why a Personal Finance Emergency Fund is so Important in Financial Planning”), and it came back with a Reading Ease score of 45 and a Grade level of 11.
Thanks for stopping by!
January 14th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
[...] My friend Hunter Nuttall wrote a great post this week about the readability of blogs…definitely an interesting read. [...]
January 16th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Interesting results Hunter - and you have a few of my favourite blogs on there too.
I love how Barbara’s blog inspires conversation in the comments section too. That occurs in very few blogs.
By the way Steve - thanks for the reminder about cutting unnecessary adjectives. That is one of the first things I do when I’m editing something. But I seem to litter my blog with them - I don’t know why. Maybe the blog has become a slush pile for rejected adjectives!
January 16th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Catherine, you’re right that very few blogs have good conversations in the comments.
Some blogs are just too big and get way too many comments. In this case,
1. The blog owner can only reply to a comment every now and then.
2. People don’t read all the comments before writing theirs.
3. People don’t check the “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” box.
The result is that people just make a comment and leave.
Small blogs don’t get many comments, which is to be expected. But when a new blog gets comments, it seems to me that the blog owner should respond if they want to encourage more comments. This is one of the things Barbara does so well, asking questions, getting answers, and replying to the answers to create a real discussion.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Wow, great post. Thanks for the link to the readability site. I just tested one of my own most popular posts (in search anyway) and it came to grade 12, readability 48.
I suppose if I adjust it a bit, I may get more of a response…back to work.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Stephen, you can probably improve your readability scores without too much effort. The formula is just based on the number of words per sentence and the number of syllables per word, so you would just focus on keeping those down. Of course, there are aspects of readability that aren’t measured by those scores, but they’re good to use as a quick objective measure.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
[...] Retirement Extreme placed 7th on my list of The 10 Most Readable Blogs (That I Like). Digg this Stumble [...]
March 17th, 2008 at 3:09 am
You hit a great point. I like a simple little guage:
“Do you make me work to hard to read your stuff?”
There’s another angle too, some folks on my team from other countries pointed out. For a lot of countries, English isn’t their first language, so writing in simpler words and sentences is helpful.
On the physical side, simpler writing is better for our brains. Our prefrontal cortex (working memory), burns out faster if it has to work too hard. I appreciate authors who express complicated concepts simply. I really don’t appreciate authors who overcomplicate the simple.
My favorite tip on writing is expanding nominalized sentences into full sentences (http://thebookshare.blogspot.com/2008/02/five-principles-to-improve-your.html) Basically, it means say your point with a longer, simpler setnence over a shorter, clever one (that makes your audiencw work too hard to parse it.)
That said, I think purpose matters a lot. For learning, insight, and action, simple is the way to go. For “the literaray experience,” complexity is the price of impact (I wouldn’t want a simplified James Lee Burke)
J.D.’s last blog post..Designing Organizational Architecture
March 18th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
J.D., I like that quote. While some things are complicated by necessity, many things can be made simpler. Let’s take it easy on our readers’ prefrontal cortexes!
April 15th, 2008 at 4:00 am
Great pointer. I knew already I had a room for readability improvement. Now i know how big the room is.
LOL!
thanks
alikl
Alik Levin | Practice This’s last blog post..Emotional Intelligence - Higher Order Skills
April 26th, 2008 at 5:22 am
Alik, I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself. I just took a quick look at your blog, and my prefrontal cortex is OK! However, we can all improve.