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Five-Step Readability Checklist

March 1, 2010 By Linda Dessau

You’ve got great ideas that people will benefit from. Before you put those great ideas into writing, make sure people will keep reading them!

  1. Have you read it out loud? How does it sound? Does it sound like you? Do the sentences flow and make sense, or are there missing words or clumsy phrases?
  2. Have you printed it out? How does it look? Is there lots of white space surrounding short bits of text that are easy to skim, or are there large, dense blocks of content?
  3. Have you used simple language that’s easy to understand, or are you trying to sound smart with big words, complex sentences, jargon or technical terms?
  4. Is there structure and coherence to your writing? Do you define, introduce and conclude each topic, or do you expect your reader to connect the dots?
  5. Have you checked your punctuation, spelling, grammar, spacing, and sentence structure? Are your choices appropriate and consistent with other writing you’ve published? Hint: Use a style guide and/or a style sheet to make sure.
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