EFL 8. Writing for Coffee and Readability: Maximizing your international audience

Conversation over coffee

When writing English for international audiences, it is a good idea to write more simply – like you normally speak. Think about what you like to read. Imagine you are on your coffee break and start scrolling through your Linkedin feed.

Do you want to read an update that is very formal, or one that is overly informal and chatty?

If you’re like most professionals, then neither.

Let’s look at an example of someone’s update post, written in three different ways: overly formal and wordy, overly informal and brief, and just about right with coffee.

Example 1. Overly formal written

At the end of a day fully scheduled with intense meetings and creative brainstorming workshops, we were subsequently able to ratify all of the details in the clients Request for Proposal (RFP). We therefore arrived at the unanimous conclusion that the client should leverage personal and authentic content marketing in order to generate hype and publicity. (56 words, 2 sents; 28 words/sent)

Example 2. Overly informal and chatty style

Whew! What a day! A slew of goddamn meetings, but nailed down all of the clients specs. They gotta ramp up their content marketing and create some buzz. (28 words; 4 sents; 7 words/sent)

These two examples go to the extremes. In Example 1, international professional audiences have no time for its wordiness (56 words) and formality (subsequently, ratify, therefore, unanimous, leverage, etc.). In Example 2, although it is less wordy, it has a lot of slang that will alienate international readers, like whew, slew, nail down, ramp up, buzz.

I doubt you would choose either of these to read on your break. They get scrolled past.

So, if you want to communicate clearly to international audiences, a neutral sounding tone is a good idea. It should contain simple vocabulary and grammar, like spoken English without slang. Think of engaging the reader in a conversation – it will sound more authentic and they will feel that you are actually talking to them.

Example 3. Neutral and conversational

Good news! After a long day of meetings and lots of brainstorming, we finally agreed on the details for the client’s RFP. They need to effectively use personal and authentic content marketing to create more publicity and public awareness. (39 words; 3 sents; 13 words/sent)

This third example is more neutral and more engaging, with a length between the overly long Example 1, and the overly brief and slangy Example 2. With the opening phrase “Good news!”, the post sounds like it is talking to the reader, and its plain vocabulary is more accessible than the formal and slangy styles of the other examples. Your network will be much happier to read an update like this.

Checking Readability

Non-native English speakers appreciate easier and more readable English. But you know what? So do native or high level English speakers, too. All of these professionals have little free time and often scroll through Linkedin on their coffee breaks.

In an interesting study of the 3000 most viewed Linkedin articles ([1]; see Figure and Table below), the articles with the most views had FK scores that make them suitable for 11 year olds to read (see below Figure and Table). The next two most read articles had readability levels suitable for 13-15 year olds (Standard) and 12 year olds (Fairly easy).

The conclusion? – Even though many Linkedin users and highly educated and high level users of English, they prefer easy to read articles.

At this point, you might be curious to know how readable your English writing is.

There are several readability checkers out there and studies have shown there are a lot of similarities in their results, at least for English (like this study, [2]). The most famous scale is called the Flesch-Kincaid (FK) Reading Ease scale that was used in the above analysis of 3000 popular Linkedin articles. A total number of 7 different formulas are listed here ([3]), including FK; you can enter a sample text of at least 100 words to get individual and averaged readability scores.

The following revision example shows an original post that is very formal and academic and a more “standard” version that is much more readable and engaging.

Revision example 1. Before → After. Difficult to read

Original (example of very formal and academic post)

Revised

The development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been deployed as a benchmark to determine a country’s technological success and prowess.

At present, AI in the US Navy and for national defense is being actively developed and exploited to flex the muscle of a nation’s power. Although many contend that AI will struggle to match human decision-making skills, it is needless to say the problem will be resolved considering the high speed of AI learning. After further evolution and maturation, AI will be leveraged to save sailors from exhausting and repetitive tasks and ensure a safer work environment for these patriotic defenders of their country.

(104 words; 4 sent; 26 words/sent; 549 characters; 5.3 letters/word)

AI has become a standard to measure a country’s technological success and power.

It is now used in the US Navy and for national defense and it is a way to show the nation’s strength. But many people argue that AI cannot match human decision-making skills. I disagree. I am confident it will one day because of AI’s speed and ability to learn. When this day comes, AI will save sailors from exhausting and repetitive tasks and create a safer work environment for those defending their country.

I think the use of AI in the navy and armed forces is a good idea. Our soldiers deserve this support.

(108 words; 8 sent; 13.5 words/sent; 487 characters; 4.5 letters/word)

Readability checkers typically analyze the sentence and word lengths (either syllables or characters). In this sense, we can see that the original post was much more difficult and less readable because it had fewer sentences, more words per sentence and longer more complicated words like deploy, prowess, resolve, leverage, and maturation.

Original text
– 104 words, 4 sentences with 26 words per sentence, and an average word length of 5.3 letters
Revised text
– 108 words, 8 sentences with 13.5 words per sentence, and an average word length of 4.5 letters

More specifically, the automatic readability checker website mentioned above can turn these numbers into a suitable reader similar to the FK scores above. Based on the combination of 7 readability scores, we can see that the original is actually twice as difficult to read as the revised.

Original text
– Grade Level of 15, a Reading Level of “difficult to read” and a Reader’s Age of College graduate
Revised text
– Grade Level of 7, Reading Level of “fairly easy to read”, and a Reader’s Age of 11-13 years (Sixth and Seventh graders)

This is not the language style that will be welcomed on Linkedin. The sentences and words are simply too long. The revised version has the readability we are looking for.

Of course, readability cannot be reduced to only sentence and word lengths. There are several other factors that make a text easier or more difficult to read.

Going back to our revised example, which version is easier to read?

Revised version A
AI has become a standard to measure a country’s technological success and power. It is now used in the US Navy and for national defense and it is a way to show the nation’s strength. But many people argue that AI cannot match human decision-making skills. I disagree. I am confident it will one day because of AI’s speed and ability to learn. When this day comes, AI will save sailors from exhausting and repetitive tasks and create a safer work environment for those defending their country. I think the use of AI in the navy and armed forces is a good idea. Our soldiers deserve this support.

How did you feel when you first saw that chunk of text? How long did it take you to get through it? Now, how about version B?

Revised version B
AI has become a standard to measure a country’s technological success and power.

It is now used in the US Navy and for national defense and it is a way to show the nation’s strength. But many people argue that AI cannot match human decision-making skills.

I disagree.

I am confident it will one day because of AI’s speed and ability to learn. When this day comes, AI will save sailors from exhausting and repetitive tasks and create a safer work environment for those defending their country.

I think the use of AI in the navy and armed forces is a good idea. Our soldiers deserve this support.

This version probably takes about half the time to get through it. You will notice that many posts on LinkedIn are formatted like this to make the message as easy to read as possible.

So, in addition to shorter sentences and shorter words, you should aim for shorter paragraphs. Just like a newspaper article. Journalists write short paragraphs with narrow columns to help people spend less effort reading. You too should become a journalist.

For longer posts and articles (see a later post for this), here are 4 more tips:

Use Headings and Subheadings: To help navigate quickly through the text
Make good use of typeface options: bold, italicizing or underlining can make ideas standout
Use Bullets and Numbering: to show list information quickly
Add Blockquotes: To make quotes stand out and break up the text.

Follow these tips and more people will make the effort to read your posts. Wouldn’t you rather read concise, readable and conversationally engaging posts on your coffee break?