Style Index

The Style Index tells you if you are writing in clear English. Rather than use a simplistic readability formula of word length and average sentence length, the Style Index measures the plain English problems in your text, including a weighted score for long sentences. In this way, the Style Index gives you an overall score of style based on many writing issues:

  • Business Clichés
  • Complex Words
  • Foreign Expressions
  • Hidden Verbs
  • Jargon/Abstract Words
  • Legal Words
  • Long Sentences
  • Overused Words
  • Overwriting
  • Passive Verbs
  • Redundancies
  • Stale Phrases
  • Tautologies
  • Tautologies

The best writers score as low as 10 on the Style Index, equivalent to one style problem for every five or six sentences. Most people score 6 or 7 times as badly as the best writers, averaging two or three style problems in every sentence.

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