Dumb it Down!

">then perform a spelling and grammar test. When
How many times have you written a brilliantthe test is finished, you will get a report stating
article, marketing piece, blog or web content onlythe readability factor and grade level of the piece
to be told it doesn't go over well with theyou just wrote. Pretty cool, huh?
masses?This process is called the Flesch-Kincaid Readability
Maybe you haven't been told that!Score and for simplicity purposes, I'm not going to
But, if you have...go into details - but feel free to Google it... I will
Here's my advice... dumb it down!say that the US Government uses this process
The average person reads and comprehends on aas a standard test.
fifth to sixth grade reading level. It's not that theSometimes it's very difficult to dumb down your
average person is lacking intelligence - it's just thatwords...when I started writing this article my score
to make your project easier to read it needs towas 9.2 that means a ninth grader could
come down a few notches.understand it. After many changes, I was able to
But how do you dumb it down?get the article down to a score of 6.8.
Well, my friend David Gruttadaurio showed me aIt still wasn't good enough! It needed to come
solution that I'm going to share with you.down between a five and six.
It's a way to test your piece and see where youAfter running a final test - my score was a 5.9
can dumb it down.Yes, sometimes trying to dumb down your
And if you have Microsoft Word 2007, then youwords can take time and rack your brain, but
can test the dumbness factor with ease.your articles will read better. And that my friend
Just copy and paste your text into a Wordis the name of the game.
document and click on the REVIEW tab, it willKeep it simple!