<%= analysis.smog_grade.try(:round) %> / 16 SMOG grade

According to this scale, your document is <% if analysis.smog_grade.round > 12 %> Understandable by a <%= (analysis.smog_grade.round - 12).ordinalize %>-year college student. <% else %> Understandable by a <%= analysis.smog_grade.round.ordinalize %>-grade reader. <% end %>

Don't let the silly acryonym (The Simple Measure of Gobbledygook) sidetrack you; the SMOG readability formula was first published by Dr. G. Harry McLaughlin in 1969 as an improvement to the Fog index. Like other readability scales, SMOG aims to measure at what U.S. grade level a reader will fully understand a work of text.

SMOG has been validated against reading comprehension tests, predicting with 98.5% accuracy (and a standard error of 1.5%) which students had a 100% comprehension rate on a given piece of text.

A higher score on this scale indicates a document is harder to understand.

To raise your score on this scale:

Use more words of at least three syllables.
Use more sentences.

To lower your score on this scale:

Use more one- and two-syllable words.
Use fewer sentences.