Newspaper Readability

Readability of the Raleigh News & Observer

John J. Brogden

Dr. Shinemin Lin

MATH 222/Business Statistics

February 13, 2014

Abstract

The main objective of this project is to determine the readability of a newspaper. In this case, The Raleigh News & Observer. The hypothesis is that a newspaper’s readability is lower than a 5th grade level. Using Microsoft Excel, Stat Crunch, and Dr. Fry’s readability formula, I will determine if this holds true with the newspaper stated above. I have selected five different articles from five different sections of the newspaper: Local, Business/Economics, Politics, Sports, Entertainment. I have also theorized that the readability of the News & Observer will be higher than a 5th grade level, possibly somewhere in the high school levels.

Readability of the Raleigh News & Observer

I was once told that the readability of newspapers is lower than a 5th grade level. To find out how true this statement really is, I have chosen to perform a test using my hometown newspaper, the Raleigh News & Observer. I have gathered data from five different articles from five different categories to assess the readability of the newspaper that I have selected. I chose the categories local news, sports, business/economics, politics, and finally, entertainment. I picked the first thirty sentences of each article from the newspaper to use for this experiment simply because people tend to read from beginning to end, not randomly skip around.

Before starting this experiment, I theorized that since this newspaper is from a major city, that the readability of it is higher than 5th grade level. My guess is that it would fall along somewhere around high school levels, 9th-12th grade. By the end of this project, I would have either proven the hypothesis that the readability of a newspaper is in fact lower than a 5th grade level or that my theory that it would be higher than an 8th grade level.

In order to find the readability of the...