There's writing, and there's readability...

Tonight I found myself part of a discussion on the Fry Readability Formula. Graph above courtesy of this blog.

How did this topic come up? When you're surrounded by twenty fellow editors from various fields, all at a seminar to hone your skills, it naturally follows.

The point of writing is to be readable — to communicate — above all else.

With above statement hanging in air, the debate really begins.

Comments

[Kai @ BlogWorks]

I think the length of a sentence doesn't really matter. Nothing becomes less boring simply because it's written in shorter sentences.

[KG]

Kai@BlogWorks — You wrote: "Nothing becomes less boring simply because it's written in shorter sentences."

Yes! And that is always a big part of the debate --- how do you keep people's attention? While it's important to make things completely understandable, where is the point where the writing/writer loses the audience?

Depends on who the audience is, subject matter, a ton of other factors...