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The Fog Index

Posted on Monday, April 29, 2019 at 10:11 PM

Assessing the readability of a TheAtlantic.com excerpt.

This month's Fog Index sample comes from an older TheAtlantic.com piece ("There Is No Excuse for How Universities Treat Adjuncts" by Caroline Fredrickson, from September 15, 2015). Here's the text:

"If the rationale for using low-wage professorial labor is affordable college, however, it hasn't worked. Tuition increases inspire awe at their size -- public universities cost three times what they cost in 1980, private universities twice as much. As universities have added amenities like squash courts and luxury dorms, their spending has increased threefold, but the student-teacher ratio remains the same as it was in the past. If you think these tuition increases resulted from an investment in providing a better education for the students in the classroom, consider the growth in administrative staff and administrative pay."

--Word count: 96 words
--Average sentence length: 24 words (15, 22, 29, 30)
--Words with 3+ syllables: 18 percent (17/96 words)
--Fog Index (24+18)* .4 = 16 (16.8, no rounding)

We need to cut 5 points from the Fog Index. The 96 words in this sample are split into just 4 sentences. This skews the Fog score upward, as does the somewhat elevated percentage of longer words. Can we cut the Fog without stripping the writing of its essence?

"If the logic for using low-wage professorial labor is cheaper college, however, it hasn't worked. Tuition increases have been shocking in their size. Public universities cost three times what they did in 1980, private universities twice as much. As universities have added extras such as squash courts and luxury dorms, their spending has increased threefold. But the student-teacher ratio remains the same. If you think these tuition increases resulted from an investment in better schooling for the students, consider the growth in administrative staff and pay."

--Word count: 86 words
--Average sentence length: 14 words (15, 8, 15, 17, 7, 24)
--Words with 3+ syllables: 13 percent (11/86 words)
--Fog Index (14+13)* .4 = 10 (10.8, no rounding)

Splitting up longer sentences made all the difference here. We made 6 sentences out of the original 4, which cut average sentence length by 10 points. A few modest word changes brought down the percentage of longer words by 5 points. This allowed us to cut 6 points total from the original Fog Index.

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