New Study: 54% of American Adults Read Below 6th Grade-Levels
New Study: 54% of American Adults Read Below 6th Grade-Levels
cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/1006130
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The original was posted on /r/aboringdystopia by /u/Last_Salad_5080 on 2023-10-03 14:21:04.
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We are required to write our customer facing self-help articles at no greater than an 8th grade reading level. Or people literally can't read to the end.
Largely removing and semblance of usefulness to them IMHO.
So this tracks.
This is nothing new though. I remember being in middle school and teachers saying that the most sophisticated newspapers at the time were written at an eighth grade level. Basically, it's the level where you're not alienating potential customers, I guess. And I suppose there's some benefit to dumbing down things like news. Maybe. I dunno.
As a lawyer, I have to take MASSIVE amounts of time to write and rewrite emails and letters to account for the fact that (1) no matter how important the matter, 80% of folks WILL NOT read the whole thing, (2) of the 20% that do read the whole thing, 50% will accidentally skip over key points. I’ve learned to use bullet lists, and as much as possible, to err on the side of plain language—even when doing so leads to an underinformed person, because the alternative is an entirely uninformed person. It’s brutal.
You should put more notewithstandings and Latin in your legal stuff. People like that ;)
Well, I’d like to say res ipsa loquitur, but obviously not. :)
How do you even measure that? Is there a guidebook?