Is BattleGrip Difficult to Read?
Yesterday I ran across 64 Awesome, Free Tools for Modern Storytellers at Medium and instantly found myself drawn to the Hemingway App. The app is designed to help simplify and improve your writing, and after playing with it a little I’m now considering spending the $7 to install the app and give it a try in my daily writing.
I was mainly looking at Hemingway for business writing, but out of curiosity I dumped the text of an upcoming BattleGrip post into the sample screen and BAM. Hemingway hit me with a score showing that my writing is bad. Bad? I know I’m not the greatest writer in the world, but “bad” never even crossed my mind.
I experimented with the text in the app’s demo window, cutting and twisting and warping the words. I can admit that there was (in my mind) an improvement in the text after a few moments, but even then the score came back as “bad.” WTF?
A little more research in Hemingway and I uncovered the problem: Hemingway says my writing is too complex, aimed at college and post-college readers. According to the app, I need to greatly simplify the work.
Okay, that was unexpected. I figured I was just writing as I write and never once thought about the audience trying to understand things. So that has me now ask:
Is BattleGrip too tough to read? Would you like the site better if I simplified the text a bit more?
Your feedback wanted!!!
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- Write like a virtual Hemingway (hmunro.wordpress.com)
No, it’s fine. You don’t need to change 🙂
@Wolf – Thanks! That seems to be the sentiment today.
Oh, definitely not! Battlegrip is really easy to read in my opinion. Don’t change anything about it!
@T-Rav – I’ll try and keep things the same. I want to improve some of what I do, but I won’t lose the basics.
Nope, it was and is just fine! I love reading your posts!
@ralph – Thank you!
Battlegrip is easy to read even for foreigners, such as myself, the language is not hard at all.
@Dmitriy Riabov – Thank you. I’d actually not even thought about how the international audience may see things. Good to hear it’s not a problem for you.
I think Battlegrip is perfectly readable. I’ve used programs like that in one of my grad school seminars when we were discussing writing for text books. I’d maybe consider using it for writing instructions, basic informational text, or something of the ilk where clarity to a variety of users or readers is important, but not for much else.
@Barbecue17 – I’ll experiment a bit. I suck at commas so maybe it can help me there. 🙂
No change needed 🙂 Remember that the ratings on those tools can skew based on a word here or there it’s been programmed to rate as “complex”. While it certainly can help your writing be more direct, it can also make you over simplify things. I’ve found those tools to be very difficult to apply to niche topics. You’re doing just fine!
@Jay – Thanks, Jay. I’ll try not to let “complex” nag at me too much. 🙂
You cover a very wide range of topics on here from your time traveling to toys to other interests and I can say that all of the articles are written in a way that makes them very accessible, even to people that a less informed on the subject. Don’t change a thing 🙂
@Jonathan – I’d not thought about how someone unfamiliar with the subject would see things. No big changes coming!
These writing assessment tools do not actually consider the content of your post or the message behind it, but the amount of words with three or more syllables, the amount of words in a sentence, and the amount of sentences in a paragraph. Typically, in regards to public posting, these programs suggest shooting for a score of 6th to 8th grade reading level.
Consider your audience. Are 12 to 14 year olds taking time to read your blog? Just from my cursory glance, it appears to appeal more to the nostalgic gamer audience than kids who’s attention spans aren’t long enough to read more than the 140 characters in a twitter post.
As for Hemmingway: “Basically, his style is simple, direct, and unadorned, probably as a result of his early newspaper training. He avoids the adjective whenever possible, but because he is a master at transmitting emotion without the flowery prose of his Victorian novelist predecessors, the effect is far more telling.” –http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/for-whom-the-bell-tolls/critical-essays/hemingways-writing-style
In Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, they recommend the same kind of stripped down, austere writing style that Hemmingway produced, (EB White wrote Charlotte’s Web) and Stephen King, in On Writing decries the use of adverbs (words that end in -ly) and adjectives (descriptor words, such as tall, short, big, huge, etc.).
If you want to improve and write like the masters, read them, then copy them (giving proper credit, of course), then write like them. If you are happy with your prose, and so is your audience — which it sounds like they are — motor on and ignore droids who think they know the difference between good and bad writing, though base it on analytics.
Never had an issue Phil, no sence fixin what ain’t broke.
The Hemingway app sounds like it wants you to dumb down your writing to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Don’t do it, I like your writing the way it is.
However I can’t help but imagine what a Hemingway approved toy blog would be like. Maybe something like, “Me am like this Transformer. It be good toy. It robot.” Who knows, maybe that would open you up to a whole new audience?
I’ve always found your writing to be a pretty smooth read, Phil. You always come through loud and clear.
What gets me is your links seem to be gone? Maybe the page just isn’t loading right for me – and I know some of the links have become defunct – but man, I used your page also as a jump-off point to like at least five other site in my almost daily blog-reading. Bring back the links!
no trouble here — please don’t “dumb down” BG!
Out of curiosity I went and plugged in a couple of Branded articles in that app and I got dinged for things I don’t agree to be “bad writing”. Sure, I make a lot of grammar errors (never my strong suit in school), but for instance it pointed out that I use the passive voice a lot, but then I’m writing about memories and events long past which are inherently passive. I’m sure these things can help some to guide for a bit more clarity, but I don’t think it’s truly indicative of of one’s writing prowess.
I’ve been reading Battlegrip for years and I’ve never had an issue.
There is no need to change your writing. I have never had a problem with it, and I think if you try to simplify (dumb down) it, then your voice would be lost.
FWIW, one of the plugins on my site can do a similar evaluation. I don’t look at that too often, but there have been times when I’ve noted that it says my writing is difficult to read.
the things that improve the score, like breaking up long sentences and using more simple language, do seem to make the intended message more clear and easier to comprehend.
as a general practice, though, I rarely take the time to go through that exercise. the tool itself would be more useful if it made actionable suggestions – but I think an actual editor would serve that purpose better. I think it’s best used as a reminder to write as clearly and concisely as possible, but not as an indicator that you need to change your writing style dramatically.
This made me laugh. As soon as I read Hemingway, I knew what your “bad” review meant. When was the last time you read Hemingway? To me, it’s garbage. Six to seven words per sentence; as basic as basic gets. This paragraph would fail for using such college tools as quotations and a semicolon.