Extreme Writing Makeover Lesson 4 - Voice Analysis

My Publication Coach, Daphne Gray-Grant, provides a link to a website that tests document readability.
http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp

I typed in the text from a couple of paragraphs from the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. I realize that the language of the 18th Century is not familiar, but easy enough to understand.  It's a smaller sample than the 500 words suggested.

Franklin writes longer sentences than the three authors quoted in the lesson.  His sentence structure, word length and number of syllables is similar.  My coach suggests 8th grade understanding.  Franklin's text requires junior year in college. 

Here are the results.  I think the level of understanding required to comprehend the results is higher than mine without further exploration of the website.  I think it's a useful tool.

Number of characters (without spaces) :	805.00
Number of words :	191.00
Number of sentences :	6.00
Average number of characters per word :	4.21
Average number of syllables per word :	1.40
Average number of words per sentence:	31.83

Indication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading
Gunning Fog index :	15.67

Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text :
Coleman Liau index :	8.08
Flesh Kincaid Grade level :	13.32
ARI (Automated Readability Index) :	14.34
SMOG :	13.00

Flesch Reading Ease :

56.26

List of sentences which we suggest you should consider to rewrite to improve readability of the text :

• All our cash was now expended in the variety of particulars we had been obliged to procure, and this countryman's five shillings, being our first fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any crown I have since earned; and the gratitude I felt toward House has made me often more ready than perhaps I should otherwise have been to assist young beginners. 

I tried another selection from Ovid's Metamorphosis, an ancient poetic prose style I said I wanted to emulate.  The results were similar to the test of Franklin's style.

Are we dumbing down? The three sample provided by the lesson require further homework.  Each has a particular audience in mind.  Readers of Ovid and Franklin may expect higher level writing than from our mass media publishers.