Get a sense of your metrics across your entire content. You can see how lively and informal your content is, and whether your content is getting too long and wordy. You can also see how these metrics develop over time.
To open the Content Metrics dashboard, go to Analytics in the Acrolinx Dashboard. You'll find Content Metrics under Analysis.
At the top of the page, you see all your current average metrics. Depending on the languages you use, you'll see some of the following metrics:
The Clarity index tells you how clear your text is.
Sentence length and syllables per word don’t tell the whole story. So, it also looks at linguistic factors: embedded sentences, complex verb forms, passives, difficult words, and much more.
The index ranges between 0 and 100. You can interpret the values as follows:
|
80–100 |
Very simple to read |
|
60–80 |
Clear |
|
40–60 |
Moderately clear |
|
20–40 |
Unclear |
|
0–20 |
Very difficult to read |
The Informality index tells you how informal your text is.
Informal writing sounds a lot like how we speak. It’s relaxed and colloquial. You address the reader in a casual way. For example, marketing text for a hip product would probably be informal. On the formal end of the spectrum would typically be legal papers or official government documents.
If you use a lot of verbs and pronouns relative to the number of nouns and adjectives, we’ll tend to score it as informal.
We also look at specific expressions. For example, Latin expressions come across as formal, while slang is informal.
An occasional sentence fragment will raise your Informality index.
The index ranges between 0 and 100. You can interpret the values as follows:
|
80–100 |
Friendly |
|
60–80 |
Informal |
|
40–60 |
Neutral |
|
20–40 |
Formal |
|
0–20 |
Stiff |
The Liveliness index tells you how lively your text is.
Lively text is exciting and compelling. It engages the reader. How lively you want to write comes down to how you want your audience to see you. You might aim for a very lively blog post about a new and exciting topic. But lively texts can be inappropriate depending on the text type!
If you write a lot of questions, exclamations, and quotations, we’ll tend to score it as lively. Addressing the reader also lifts the index, as does referring to yourself. Your Liveliness index will drop if you use passive tense or certain dull expressions.
The index ranges between 0 and 100. You can interpret the values as follows:
|
80–100 |
Lively |
|
60–80 |
Engaging |
|
40–60 |
Neutral |
|
20–40 |
On the dry side |
|
0–20 |
Dull |
Flesch Reading Ease is a classic readability metric. It’s probably the most commonly cited and used of all of them.
It uses the sentence length (number of words per sentence) and the number of syllables per word.
The scores are generally between 0 and 100. You can interpret the values as follows. (See also Flesch, Rudolf. "How to Write Plain English". University of Canterbury.)
|
Score |
School Level |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
|
90–100 |
5th grade |
Very easy to read (Easily understood by an average 11-year-old student) |
|
80–90 |
6th grade |
Easy to read (Conversational English for consumers) |
|
70–80 |
7th grade |
Fairly easy to read |
|
60–70 |
8th and 9th grade |
Plain English (Easily understood by 13- to 15-year-old students) |
|
50–60 |
10th to 12th grade |
Fairly difficult to read |
|
30–50 |
College |
Difficult to read |
|
0–30 |
College Graduate |
Very difficult to read (Best understood by university graduates) |
Below the average metrics, you have more detailed charts. Let's look at those charts and what they show you.
|
Chart Title |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Metrics |
View how the average metrics develop over time. |
|
Long Sentences |
See how many sentences Acrolinx considered "long", and just how long they were. A long sentence is a sentence that is longer than the limit set for the guideline “Shorten this sentence?”. TipYou can find your guidelines in Targets. |
|
Average Reading Time in Minutes |
On average, how long does it take to read a piece of your content? We assume that it takes 1 minute to read 250 words. |
|
Words per Document |
See whether your content is generally long or short. |
In the upper right corner of the dashboard, you’ll find the section Detail Links. A detail link opens a detailed web report table. With these web reports, you can easily filter, export, and print out the content.
|
Detail Links |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Document Metrics |
See the metrics for each piece of content that Acrolinx checked. |
To see and edit the parameters, click 
in the toolbar to the left of the dashboard.
|
Parameter |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Start date |
Choose how far back you want your charts to look. This also affects the start date of data in the Document Metrics table. |
|
Group by |
Choose the time intervals that you want to group results by. For example, you can group results by day, week, or month. |
|
Latest check |
Latest check only affects the following charts and tables:
By default, the Latest check parameter is selected. When Latest check is selected, some charts only show results based on the latest check of each document. This means that the historical numbers can change if you check the same document over a long period of time. This helps you see what the current state is for your content, regardless of when it was last checked. If you want to see trends, you can deselect Latest check to see the results for all checks over time. |