5 ways to make your copy more readable

First things first, let’s consolidate.

Blog readability score: Grade 5

What makes copy readable?

Improving your readability and writing in plain English is top of the list for making your text more inclusive. If you’re after background on readability, read first about why readability matters.

Basically, anything that complicates or lengthens your text will make it less readable—like using adverbs, such as ‘basically’.

That includes:

• long sentences

• more difficult word choices (eg. ‘convoluted’ instead of ‘complex’)

• uncommon words

• unnecessary words

• passive voice (eg. ‘the words were written by Danika’ instead of ‘Danika wrote the words’)

• dense text

• using jargon

How we measure readability

Readability comes as a score, or ‘grade level’. If you’re using the Flesch Kincaid reading ease formula, the numbers are higher, but will translate to a grade level.

The grade level will give you an idea of what level of education you need to be able to comprehend the text.

A grade level of 5 doesn’t mean you’re targeting 10 year olds. It just means your text is less complex and easier to read. Some research has been done into the optimal reading level. Most (American) adults can comprehend at a grade 10 level, so it’s good to be under that.

Having some evidence for what is and isn’t readable is essential when working with some clients, so I like to give the ‘before and after’ scores. It helps to show how I’ve improved the text and made the message easier to digest for their readers.

Tips to make text more inclusive

So you know why readability is important. And you have the desire to do it. So where do you begin? Like the language within a readable document, it’s about keeping it simple.

1. Shorten sentences

Cut your sentences down. According to American Press Institute research, readers start to switch off when a sentence has 14 words or more. Some ways to keep your sentences under 14 words are:

• re-read your sentence to yourself and, if there’s a natural pause, see if you can add a full stop

• if you use ‘and’ in the middle of a long sentence, can you use a full stop instead?

• if you’re listing two or more things in a sentence, change it into a bullet list

2. Use shorter, less complex words

Look at your words that are more than two syllables long. Are there shorter alternatives? Are there more common alternatives?

If you’re looking for some help, there are plenty of thesaurus options on the internet. I pretty much keep Power Thesaurus open in my tabs all day.

3. Use active voice

The formula for active voice is to make sure the noun performs the verb. This Grammarly article explains it well.

Danika did the thing NOT the thing was done by Danika.

This is one of the most common readability issues I see in government writing. It might be because passive voice is less direct, and therefore less committal.

Sometimes an owner isn’t even included. They like to say the way they do things will be changed. Who is doing the changing? If we don’t say us, does that mean it’s OK if the thing doesn’t actually get changed?

We will change the way we do things.

4. Remove unnecessary words

Another common issue I see, particularly in government writing, is using bulky, flowery and unnecessary words. And every time I would write back to my government client to say I’d removed extraneous wording, I’d have a little giggle to myself about the irony of the word ‘extraneous’.

These words are often pointless. You’re not at uni trying to meet a word count, you’re trying to get an important message across to a reader, so why use them?

Here are some examples of awesomely terrible wordy sentences. What would you do to make them more readable?:

• The Department is committed to supporting the capacity of our stakeholders in order to progress their capabilities in servicing their clients.

• The framework combines the objectives and strategic direction to provide the roadmap to which we can achieve the planned outcomes for consumers.

Another word-cutting tip is to simply go through your text and see how many instances of ‘that’ and ‘have’ you can delete without changing the meaning of your sentence. You will be surprised.

5. Use a readability tool

There are some wonderful readability tools out there. Some help you identify issues. Others help you solve them too.

The Rolls Royce for me is Visible Thread. If you’re a person or organisation with the budget, you can do wonderful things with the online program. You can upload and analyse a whole document. It spits out a detailed report of where it’s gone wrong, and how to fix it. But there’s also a more limited, free version of VT Writer.

For everyday, quick and easy checking though, you can’t go past the Hemingway app. Simply copy and paste your text into the online app and you’ll get an instant, colourful view of readability issues.

For the traditionalists, or people with frustratingly robust firewalls on their work computers, Microsoft Word itself has an inbuilt Flesch Kincaid checker. It’ll give you a grade level score and can test the reading ease. You’ll just need to turn the tool on.