Lost in the fog

Sharpshooter · Mar 25, 2011

I'm writing a nonfiction book that has a lot of scientific explanation behind it, but is aimed at smart, but maybe not erudite readers.

Is the Fog Index still used? If so, do any of you use it?

My book proposal comes in at about 11.1, and ther manuscript varies from 9.8 to 13.

Any thoughts? Should I use this tool, or just write?

tHANKS,

artemis31386 · Mar 25, 2011

Hi Sharpshooter,

I'm not familiar with the fog index. Maybe you should ask over on the non-fiction boards. They might be able to better answer that for you.

the addster · Mar 29, 2011

I don't use the Fog index, nor any of the other readability scales, though I have heard of them. Just for fun I just ran a passage from a paper I wrote yesterday for a college course and a passage from an essay I'm editing for publication through one of the online readability calculators that uses the Fog index among others.

Boring ass, intentionally overwritten, paper. Fog index: 22.06
Well written, engaging, publishable, essay. Fog index: 10.74

So yeah, I suppose you are in good shape, but I'm not sure it means much in the big picture. I have never heard of these indexes being used much outside of the educational community where their usefulness is somewhat disputed.

Lost in the fog

Sharpshooter

artemis31386

All around miscreant

the addster