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The Fog Index

Posted on Thursday, October 31, 2013 at 1:01 AM

Assessing the readability of a Wired.com article.

This month, we calculate the Fog Index of an October 30 Wired.com piece ("New Server Every 10 Seconds -- The Price of Our Digital Lives" by Jeff Klaus). Here's the excerpt:

"It is true that servers have been gaining more efficiency at processing per watt, but there is still a critical need for power consumption management. Every new server pushes the data center closer to site capacity power limits, and increases the energy costs that are already a significant portion of the overall data center budget. In total, data centers consume at least 1.5 percent of all the world's available energy. This represents a doubling of energy consumption over the last five years, and is due in part to the digital lifestyles we all enjoy."

--Word count: 94 words
--Average sentence length: 24 words (25, 30, 15, 24)
--Words with 3+ syllables: 16 percent (15/94 words)
--Fog Index: (24+16)*.4 = 16 (no rounding)

The Fog Index is on the high side at 16. The average sentence length is on the longer side at 24 words, so our best bet will be to break up the text into smaller parts. The percentage of longer words is also quite high, so we'll also try to cut these where possible.

"Servers have become faster at processing per watt, but there power consumption management is still vital. Each new server pushes the data center closer to site capacity power limits. It also increases the energy costs, which are already a major portion of the data center budget. In total, data centers consume at least 1.5 percent of all the world's available energy. This represents a doubling of energy use over the last five years that is due in part to the digital lifestyles we all enjoy."

--Word count: 85 words
--Average sentence length: 17 words (16, 13, 17, 15, 24)
--Words with 3+ syllables: 11 percent (10/88 words)
--Fog Index: (17+11)*.4 = 11 (no rounding)

This sample required some minor line editing to tighten up the Fog score. We were able to reduce the average sentence length by 7 words. We also cut the percentage of longer words by 5 percent.

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