Assessing the readability of a Wired.com excerpt.

This month, we calculate the Fog Index of an April 28 Wired.com excerpt (from "The New Disruptive Business Normal: How to Innovate from the Inside Out" by Andi Gutmans, Zend Technologies). Let's look at the passage:

"As an ever-increasing number of businesses must transition quickly to software and online services, software is the disruption epicenter. From a competitive standpoint, a company must be able to create software, deliver it and continue innovating on it. And this innovation must occur frequently and rapidly. In fact, software must become a core competency for enterprises. In addition, innovative technologies including mobile, social, cloud and big data are fueling software-led market disruption. Forward-looking companies are putting these supporting technology disruptors to work for them, in turn, to achieve 'disruptive' business results."

--Word count: 91 words
--Average sentence length: 15 words (19, 19, 8, 10, 16, 19)
--Words with 3+ syllables: 22 percent (20/91 words)
--Fog Index: (15+22)*.4 = 14 (no rounding)

This piece reads quite smoothly. The author does a good job of controlling sentence length. The Fog Index is a bit high, though, and the clear culprit is longer words. A whopping 22 percent of the words (excluding those with -es, -ed, and -ing endings) qualifies as 3+ syllables under the Gunning Fog model. Let's see if we can bring our Fog score below 12.

"With more businesses shifting to software and online services, software is the disruption epicenter. To remain competitive, a company must be able to create software, supply it, and update it often. In fact, software must become a core competency for businesses. In addition, newer technologies including mobile, social, cloud, and big data are fueling software-led market disruption. Forward-looking companies are putting these supporting technology disruptors to work for them, in turn, to achieve 'disruptive' business results."

--Word count: 76 words
--Average sentence length: 15 words (14, 14, 10, 16, 19)
--Words with 3+ syllables: 14 percent (11/76 words)
--Fog Index: (15+14)*.4 = 11 (no rounding)

With some minor tweaks and word substitutions, we came in just under the wire at 11.6 (11 with no rounding). This was a challenging sample to edit because we needed to cut longer words in an excerpt dense with tech terms. Our Fog score would have been even lower if we hadn't trimmed 15 words from the original sample.

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