It would be understood by a 15-year-old, but it’s still more complex than a broadsheet newspaper.) But what about more technical topics? (F-K grade 6.2) (These four paragraphs scored a F-K grade level of 9.4. Even a single extra point on the F-K grade level could mean the difference between your marketing being enjoyed or endured by your reader. It’s especially important if your content might be read on a mobile device, which is already difficult enough.Īnd if you write for an international audience? Readability is essential for those who might use English as a second language. In fact, even the smartest among us might give up if a piece of writing creates a large cognitive load. No matter who your audience is, readability is important.Įven if you write for smart, educated businesspeople, no one has ever complained that something was too easy to read. That’s roughly double the UK’s average reading age.) Why use it in B2B? (F-K grade 9.4) (These last two paragraphs score an F-K grade level of 13. Let’s take a jargon-tastic tech cliché as an example: “In today’s challenging economic climate, only cloud computing can help companies achieve meaningful competitive advantage.” That would score a significant F-K grade level of 17 – meaning only people educated up to grade 17 in the US (we’re talking well into higher education here) will understand it fully. The lower the number, the easier it is to read. Commissioned by the US Navy to help benchmark the difficulty of technical training manuals, the F-K grade level uses a formula based on the average number of syllables per word, and words per sentence to offer a number that represents what grade of education you would require to understand the content. Peter Kincaid, the Flesch-Kincaid (F-K) grade level is one of two tests devised to assess the complexity of a piece of writing. A pound of Flesch-Kincaid (F-K grade 13)ĭevised by scientists Rudolph Flesch and J. To prove how effective it can be in keeping writing clear and simple, I’ll be writing each section of this blog at a different Flesh-Kincaid grade level, so you have a practical example of how it all looks. The Flesch-Kincaid grade score gives you a quick way to assess the complexity of any piece of B2B copy. But there is one framework you might want to consider adding to the mix one that arguably makes copy punchier and more readable.

It’s easy to assume more rules mean more creative restrictions. After all, they’re probably already following several tone, messaging and format guidelines.

Often seen as restrictive at best and pointless busy-work at worst, you may be loath to give your writer strict rules to follow when you set them off on a new campaign.

Flesch readability scale