I found an interesting test after reading the Field Negro's blog. Last week, he did a post about the reading level required for certain blogs. In it, he included the link to The Blog Readability Test. By entering your blog's URL in the appropriate field, you can determine the level of education required to understand your blog. According to the test:
Personally, I wouldn't mind if the reading level of my blog was lower. If a bright 12 yr old wants to swing by and weigh in on whether or not their favorite show did Jump the Shark or if they want to give their thoughts on the CSS song in the new iPod Touch commercial, I want them to feel welcome. For any of you bloggers that happen to submit your URL to determine your blog's reading level, feel free to stop back and share with the rest of us.
13 comments:
Good grief, mine got "elementary school!"
My day to day personal blog ranked High School, my Book Review blog ranked College: Post-Grad, and my writing blog ranked Junior High, which is actually good considering the novel I am writing and sharing via that blog is a Young Adult novel aimed at 12-16 year olds. Great quiz going to be using it sometime this week.
Neat link Malcolm! Thanks for posting it. NOTE: I checked permalink posts I have that are longer, more involved prose and they tested higher levels. It doesn't "crawl" the site, but rather it only scans and rates the front page posts of your blog. Just an FYI.
I'm afraid to see what mine is.
Book Mama: I wouldn't fret over your rating. As the Field Negro said on his self-titled blog: "Now I would think that the less level of education it takes to read a particular blog the better. If my blog, for instance, was rated with an Elementary School or Junior High level, that would be a good thing, because then it would mean that everyone who came here could pretty much pick up what I am trying to put down."
Sassy Lucy: I read some of the excerpts of your YA novel "Something Lost, Something Found". I lived in Marquette, MI for over 5 years. When you referred to the hometown paper the Mining Journal, that really took me back.
Damien: Thanks for the heads up. I had my suspicions about how the test worked. I just submitted my URL again and now I'm receiving a rating of College (Post Grad). I find it interesting that this post "increased" the reading level of my blog. Oh well, all I have to do is throw together a post containing Paris Hilton quotes... that should drop the reading level right back down.
Barbara: To quote Fee Waybill of the Tubes, "Step right up and don't be shy."
Aren't blogs suppose to be readible for the average person? This blog as well as others I have read use everyday conversational language. They are meant to inform, but mostly to be fun and entertaining. The blog I have for my college course is at the genius level, but that is only because of the it uses college level wording and concepts. If I had a regular blog I would be proud if it was considered to be at the elementary or junior high school level, that way I would know that everyone would get the point.
I got an Elementary School rating. I'm going to have to learn some bigger words :) LOL
On second thought...nah!
Jessica
Pjazzy: I feel that blogs should be understandable to the avg. person. If my blog could only be understood by a MENSA member/candidate, I would have to do some serious rethinking about my approach. When I threw out the comment about a "bright 12 yr old", that was just me being a smartass... but you might have known that anyway. If an elementary schooler is interested in what I have to say, I am all for it. After all (as you well know), when I was a kid I was interested in things that happened well before my time (oldies of the 50s and 60s, black & white movies, etc). There's no doubt that there are kids today who are the same way.
When I am putting together posts, I sometimes have to check myself in regards to making my blog understandable for the pop culture layperson. For example, I figured that it would be a good idea to explain the term "Jump the Shark" in one of my recent Thursday Thirteens. Another example is in my recent Thursday Thirteen that feat. "Dallas" quotes, I included the relationships between the characters. I didn't want to assume that everyone knew that Pam and Cliff were siblings or that J.R.'s daddy was Jock Ewing.
On the other hand, if I go "Dennis Miller" and slip in a joke using a pop culture reference in one of my posts, I figure that it's best to let it go. If someone gets it, cool... if not, they can "Google" it or ask me what the hell I am talking about. It's a fine line, but I try to walk it as best I can.
Side note: as some of you may know or have figured out already, Pjazzy is a relative of mine who has known me my entire life. Over the years, me and her have had many discussions about the world of pop culture. If I mentioned in any prior posts that I discussed the topic at hand with a relative, chances are that I am referring to Pjazzy.
Jessica: I like your second thought... stick with what you're doing.
Elementary School...Hey, I never claimed to be Shakespeare.
I put in all the blogs that I read. They range from Elementary School to "Genius," which I guess means that you have to be a genius to understand it.
As PJazzypar notes, there should be nothing wrong with writing at the elementary school level. In fact, I noted that two of the three professional writers who frequent my blog wrote at that level--not surprisingly, for they are expert at making even the simplest of words dance at their command.
Some of the least intellectually challenging blogs were written on the elementary school level, but so were some of the most sophisticated. The same spread existed at the "Genius" level.
Mine was actually a little higher than I would have liked (college: undergrad), even though I spot-check articles uing my own readability software. I would prefer to be at junior-high level--about the same level as The New York Times.
"What good do your words do if they can't understand you?" Erykah Badu, "...& On" From "Mama's Gun"
Yikes mine was elementary school, but my Livejournal was at the genius level!
Hmmm.... I did this twice last week, both times I got "Genius" (WhoDaThunkIt?) so I try it again just now, and got College (postgrad).
Am I getting dumber, or is the website checker doing a (slightly) better job?
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