
So, mix short and long sentences, and read your text aloud to listen how the words flow:

Too many short sentences kill the rhythm of your writing, making your writing tiring to read. He looked at the sky and saw the white cumulus built like friendly piles of ice cream and high above were the thin feathers of the cirrus against the high September sky.
#HEMINGWAY EDITOR GRADE EXPLANATION FREE#
You can use the free Hemingway App to spot your longest sentences, and simply chop them all in two. Shortening your sentences may seem like an easy trick Think about this … Ernest Hemingway was a Nobel Prize winning author, and his books are suitable for 4th graders-pupils of 9 or 10 years old. The readability score for “The Sun Also Rises” is 4.2 (as statistician Ben Blatt reports in his book “Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve”). I checked the Flesch-Kincaid score for “The Old Man and the Sea” and it’s a mighty low score of 3.9. A score of 7, for instance, means the writing is suitable to 7th graders-pupils of 12 to 13 years old. The shorter the sentences and words, the lower the readability score. The readability score uses average sentence length and the number of syllables per word to work out how simple a text is. This tool is the Flesch-Kincaid score, and it’s available in Microsoft Word and various online tools. I am as clear as the stars that are my brothers.įrom: “The Old Man and the Sea,” by Ernest Hemingway A statistical fact on readabilityĪ simple tool exists to measure how readable a text is. I’m clear enough in the head, he thought. Simple language makes your content more accessible.īut how does Hemingway write so simply? And can we apply his style to business writing? Because simple writing helps engage a wider audience-young and old, educated and less educated, native and non-native speakers.

He shares profound wisdom using simple language. And you and I both know, he doesn’t dumb down his texts. This Nobel Prize winner writes in such simple prose he can even entertain 10 year olds. Isn’t it pretentious for business writers to try learning from Hemingway?īut Hemingway takes up a special place in writing. In 1953, he won the Pulitzer Prize for “The Old Man and the Sea.” In 1954, he won the Nobel Prize for literature. He’s one of the great writers of literature.
#HEMINGWAY EDITOR GRADE EXPLANATION HOW TO#
How to follow Hemingway’s style in business writingĬan business writers learn from Hemingway? A statistical fact on the readability of Hemingway’s writingĪnother statistical fact: Use fewer -ly words
