The Art of Plain Talk
by Rudolf Flesch ⋅ Feb 3, 2017 ⋅ Menlo Park, CAHow to write English to make it easy to understand
Probably one of the best books on language, writing and readability in general. It’s very good take on phrasing readable sentences, keeping language clear and concise.
The key take away were the results of the readability studies Flesch did in early XXIth century. He found certain relationships with age and education and its impact on text readability.
Before I read this, I didn’t know about the algorithms for readability. The formulas in the book seemed a little abstract, yet there’s something appealing at having a single score of your written text. Microsoft Word has Flesch’s algorithm embedded.
