Writing more clearly is the subject of this post. And for help in doing that, you can turn to the Gunning-Fog Index. I’ve been writing a long time but had not heard of the index until recently. Thank you, Christy and Sam Whitmore of the Media Survey for turning me on to this valuable tool.
Developed by businessman Robert Gunning in 1952, the Fog index measures the readability of English writing, or the ease and speed at which you can read and understood text. The index does this by estimating the years of formal education required to understand something on first reading. By the way, The Wall Street Journal (last I knew) is written for 10th graders, and Time magazine has an index of 11.
To make your writing clearer, use short words and sentences. Short paragraphs are a good idea, too. When you’re done, apply a few simple calculations to determine where you stand.
Unless my calculations are really off, this post has an index of 9.6. Interesting, eh? Give the index a try and see where something you’ve recently written stands.
A silly side note: Too many years ago, I was enamored of underground comic books. One of the characters I particularly loved was Oat Willie, a strange little guy whose motto was “Onward thru the Fog.”