Linsear Write is a readability metric for English text, purportedly developed for the United States Air Force to help them calculate the readability of their technical manuals. It is one of many such readability metrics, but is specifically designed to calculate the United States grade level of a text sample based on sentence length and the number words used that have three or more syllables.
The Formula
- Find a 100-word sample from your writing.
- Calculate the easy words (defined as two syllables or less) and place a number "1" over each word, even including a, an, the, and other simple words.
- Calculate the hard words (defined as three syllables or more) and place a number "3" over each word as pronounced by the dictionary.
- Multiply the number of easy words times "1."
- Multiply the number of hard words times "3."
- Add the two previous numbers together.
- Divide that total by the number of sentences.
- If your answer is more than 20, divide by "2," and that is your answer.
- If your answer is less than 20 or equal to 20, subtract "2," and then divide by "2." That is your answer.
Because sentence length and 3+ syllable words influence the results of the Linsear Write formula, you can use shorter sentences and less complex words (1 or 2 syllable words) to lower the score (grade level). or longer sentences and more complex words (3 or more syllable words) to rise the score (grade level).
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