Readability Score

[Guest]

I have a document where I need to increase the Readability ease (score) from
35.1 to 40. It has been suggested that I remove some content (e.g. the TOC
and subtitles) to increase the reading ease. When I attempt to do this, my
readability score goes down (e.g. from 35.1 to 32). Any suggestions on what
to delete to increase the Reading ease?

 

[Guest]

Deleting the TOC and headings probably decreased your score since these were
being counted as "sentences." The Flesch Reading Ease score is based on
sentence length and word length (actually, the number of syllables per word).
When you deleted all the nice short "sentences" in your TOC, you actually
increased the average length of the sentences in your document.

If I might be so bold, I would suggest that rather than simply deleting
something to make your score look better, you actually edit the document to
make it more readable. Break up awkwardly long sentences. Simplify sentence
structures. Substitute simple, direct words for more complex words. Changes
such as those would make the readability score a more meaningful measure of
your document.