Readability tools

[Kim]

I'm working on research on readability tools. There are several computerised
readability formulae and indices. I was wondering why Flesch Reading Ease and
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level were selected and used in Microsoft Word.

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hello Kim

I'm working on research on readability tools. There are several computerised
readability formulae and indices. I was wondering why Flesch Reading Ease and
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level were selected and used in Microsoft Word.

this is a peer support newsgroup. Chances that you get an official and
authoritative answer on such a topic are, erm, pretty much negative (IMHO).

If you want to pursue this, you'd first have to get hold of whoever in
Microsoft owns (or owned) this feature back when it was introduced in
Word (and I have no idea how many version you'd have to go back for this).

Right now, the MSFT research page lists exactly two articles containing
"Flesch-Kincaid:"

http://research.microsoft.com/search/search.aspx?qu=Flesch-Kincaid&id=all

HTH
Robert