Journalism 133: Prof. Craig: Readability Checklist

Readability Checklist

The "readability" of any written text refers to how easily it can be read, followed and understood by its audience.  Stories must both appeal to their intended audiences and be easy for them to comprehend.  

Editors have been concerned about readability for generations. The growth of online content — and the inherent competition it implies — has in many ways made readability even more important, not necessarily in the sense of ensuring that an article is simply comprehensible, but that it is written to the reading level expected by its intended audience.

Readability tips for writers and editors:

Example:

At the World Economic Forum in Davos today, UN Women and Emma Watson unveiled a new initiative — 10X10X10 — to cut gender inequality and empower women in communities where it’s most needed. 10X10X10 is a part of the HeForShe IMPACT 10X10X10 pilot initiative to galvanize momentum in advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment. The HeForShe campaign’s IMPACT 10X10X10 initiative is a one-year pilot effort that aims to engage governments, corporations and universities as instruments of change positioned within some of the communities that most need to address deficiencies in women’s empowerment and gender equality and that have the greatest capacity to make and influence those changes. Each sector will identify approaches for addressing gender inequality, and pilot test the effectiveness of these interventions for scalability.

Fix:

At the World Economic Forum in Davos today, UN Women unveiled a new initiative — 10X10X10 — to cut gender inequality and empower women in communities where it’s most needed. 10X10X10 is a part of the HeForShe campaign and will work with governments, businesses, and universities to test new ways to reduce gender inequality. The initiative will run for one year. HeForShe will expand successful projects to other communities.

 

Groups for exercise:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Amani Hamed
Brian So
Erica Lizarrago
Garra Gojolo
Chelsea Nguyen-Fleige
Jesus Tellitud
Sofia Wright Laura Fields
Christina Casillas
Esmeralda Bautista
Enrique Gutierrez-Sevilla
Max Miller
Andrew Glenn
Sierra Williams
Chris Padilla
Adam Yoshikawa
Don Le

Click here to proceed to the exercise >

 



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