Assessing the readability of a TechCrunch.com excerpt.

This month, we're calculating the Fog Index of a paragraph from a May 29 TechCrunch.com piece ("Robots Add Real Value When Working with Humans, Not Replacing Them" by Matt Beane). Here's the sample text, with longer words italicized for reference:

"In many Da Vinci procedures, residents find themselves on the edges of the playing field. When once they might get four hours of practice during a traditional operation, now they get 10-15 minutes during a Da Vinci procedure -- if they get a chance to participate at all. It's not that the robotics technology itself [bolded for emphasis, was italicized in original article] prevents residents from learning; the technology just makes it iPhone-easy for liability-saddled attending surgeons to assume complete control. The expert does the work, which is good for patients in the short run, but the profession itself is in a new kind of trouble."

--Word count: 97 words
--Average sentence length: 24 words (15, 32, 25, 25)
--Words with 3+ syllables: 12 percent (12/97 words)
--Fog Index: (24+12)*.4 = 14 (14.4, no rounding)

This sample divides 97 words into just 4 sentences. This leaves us with an elevated Fog score 3 points above the recommended limit. Let's try to get this within range by cutting our average sentence length:

"In many Da Vinci procedures, residents end up on the edges of the playing field. When once they might have gotten four hours of practice during a standard operation, now they get 10-15 minutes during a Da Vinci procedure. That's if they get a chance to participate at all. It's not that the robots themselves prevent residents from learning; the technology just makes it iPhone-easy for liability-saddled attending surgeons to assume complete control. The expert does the work. This is good for patients in the short run, but the profession itself is in a new kind of trouble."

--Word count: 98 words
--Average sentence length: 16 words (15, 24, 10, 24, 5, 20)
--Words with 3+ syllables: 9 percent (9/98 words)
--Fog Index: (16+9)*.4 = 10 (10.0, no rounding)

This may be the first time we've gained a word in the editing process. (This happened when we changed the verb tense in the second sentence.) Our other edits did little to change overall word count, but they did cut sentence length by one third (from 24 to 16). We could have cut this even further by splitting the new sentence 4 into two new sentences, but we didn't want the writing to become too staccato. The decrease in the number of longer words helped offset this waived opportunity.

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