They show passion, imperfection and a glimpse of our unique thought patterns. Sometimes, long-winded philosophical conjuncts are okay. In some deep sense, itвЂ™s missing my unique authorial voice. I do think the writing is crisp and clean. This current piece of writing scores a grade 4 on readability. Or you can embrace that unique vantage point upon which you gaze at existence. You can hide good taste and fall into cliches and banal expressions. Good taste and your authorial voice depend on your individuality. ItвЂ™s a judgment that concerns aesthetics. Grade eight or nine is common for easy reading, but some grammar experts suggest you aim for a sixth-grade level. But, according to Zinsser, we will know both when we see them. And itвЂ™s even harder to identify the sound of your voice. Both to the reader and to the English language. The aim is to show your good taste and give respect. Note the aim is not to find favour with the reader. It will disarm the reader with its warmth and confidence. Your humanity.ДЄ well composed piece of writing will let your unique authorial voice flow through sentences and paragraphs. But it cannot help you with the fourth principle, and arguably the most important one. It helps you satisfy ZinsserвЂ™s three of four core principles. The Hemingway Editor helps you prune your writing. Is that all there is to good writing and editing? Just the removal of clutter? In his classic work, On Writing Well, writer and editor William Zinsser argues something else is needed in addition. So I spent 10 minutes editing the text and I got the score down to a 6.Д«elow are the screenshots for the first and second attempts. But according to the editor, thereвЂ™s room for improvement. My best piece on this blog, вЂњOn Being AstonishedвЂќ, scores a 9. Finally, words in yellow and red highlight show that your text is hard or very hard to read, respectively. Words in purple highlight show that a simpler word exists to the one youвЂ™re using. The editor also checks if you are using the passive voice and highlights those words in green. It recommends that you aim for the fewest adverbs. Adverbs found in your text are highlighted in blue.

First, it checks your text for adverbs (words like вЂњgreatlyвЂќ). ItвЂ™s about the minimum schooling grade needed to understand your prose. To be clear, the readability grade is not about the target audience of your work. Despite his complex works, Ernest HemingwayвЂ™s words score as low as a U.S grade 5. You paste your text into the editor and it will return a readability grade.

It uses the вЂњreadability indexвЂќ, an algorithm used since the typewriter days, to work out your grade. The aim of the editor is to gauge the вЂњreadabilityвЂќ of your text. At least thatвЂ™s the claim put forward by the people who make it. Yesterday, I stumbled on the Hemingway Editor.

Hemingway editor grade