Another way to fight the bull

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I recently mentioned that Fight the Bull can help you check the accessibility of your written communication. Did you know you can use Microsoft Word to do something similar?

In Word, turn on Readability statistics. (You should only need to do this once.)

  1. Go to Tools
  2. Select Options
  3. Click the Spelling & Grammar tab.
  4. Check the box for Show readability statistics.
  5. Click OK.

When you want to check the readability of a document:

  1. Open the document you want to check.
  2. Go to Tools.
  3. Select Spelling & Grammar.
  4. Complete the Spelling & Grammar check.

A window with readability statistics will summarize your document.

Pay attention to the Flesch-Kincaid score. You can read more about it in Wikipedia’s Flesch-Kincaid article. However, as a general rule, try to aim for a score in the 60s or higher.