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The Fog Index

Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2012 at 10:07 PM

Assessing the Fog index of a Time.com article.

This month, we assess a sample from Time.com ("Would Apple Create a Smartwatch? If So, When?" by Tim Bajarin):

"While Apple may not be first in a new product category, their approach to making products better and then using their design and marketing prowess to take very strong positions in these markets is at the heart of the way the company works. Today, smartwatches tied to smartphones are in their very early stages -- and they show promise. But don't expect Apple to respond in kind just because the competition in this space is heating up. Instead, look for Apple to monitor these early smartwatch trailblazers and once they believe they can create something that is very sleek and elegant, then -- and only then -- would they bring out an iWatch."

Word count:
--Average sentence length: 28 words (43, 15, 18, 34)
--Words with 3+ syllables: 9 percent (7/110 words)
--Fog Index: (28+9)*.4 = 14 (no rounding)

The Fog index is on the high side for this sample. The culprit appears to be sentence length: The sample weighs in at a hefty 110 words, but it consists of just four sentences. Let's see if we can split up some sentences to bring our score below 12.

"While Apple may not be first in a new product category, they use design and marketing to take strong positions in these markets. This is the heart of how the company works. Today, smartwatches tied to smartphones are in their very early stages -- and they show promise. But don't expect Apple to respond in kind just because the competition is heating up. Instead, look for Apple to monitor these early smartwatch models. Once they believe they can create something sleek and elegant, then -- and only then -- will they bring out an iWatch."

Word count: 95
--Average sentence length: 16 words (23, 9, 16, 15, 10, 22)
--Words with 3+ syllables: 6 percent (6/95 words)
--Fog Index: (16+6)*.4 = 8 (no rounding)

By splitting up some longer sentences into shorter ones, we were able to cut the fog score by six points. Also note that we've removed two instances of "very," a word explored by Peter Jacobi in his Editors Only column this month. We didn't need to do much to clear up the Fog thanks to the low percentage of longer words.

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