US Laws, Codes, Statutes & Cases

     72C.09 Flesch scale analysis readability score, 
  procedures. 

    A Flesch scale analysis readability score shall be measured 
 as provided in this section. 

    (1) For contracts containing 10,000 words or less of text, 
 the entire contract shall be analyzed.  For contracts containing 
 more than 10,000 words the readability of two 200 word samples 
 per page may be analyzed in lieu of the entire contract.  The 
 samples shall be separated by at least 20 printed lines.  For 
 purposes of this clause a word shall be counted as five printed 
 characters or spaces between characters. 

    (2)(a)(i) The number of words and sentences in the text 
 shall be counted and the total number of words divided by the 
 total number of sentences.  The figure obtained shall be 
 multiplied by a factor of 1.015. 

    (ii) The total number of syllables shall be counted and 
 divided by the total number of words.  The figure obtained shall 
 be multiplied by a factor of 84.6. 

    (iii) The sum of the figures computed under (i) and (ii) 
 subtracted from 206.835 equals the Flesch scale analysis 
 readability score for the policy or contract. 

    (b) For purposes of clause (a) the following procedures 
 shall be used: 

    (i) A contraction, hyphenated word, or numbers and letters, 
 when separated by spaces, shall be counted as one word; 

    (ii) A unit of words ending with a period, semicolon or 
 colon, but excluding headings, captions, and lists, shall be 
 counted as a sentence; and 

    (iii) A syllable means a unit of spoken language consisting 
 of one or more letters of a word as divided by an accepted 
 dictionary.  Where the dictionary shows two or more equally 
 acceptable pronunciations of a word, the pronunciation 
 containing fewer syllables may be used. 

    HIST: 1977 c 345 s 9; 1980 c 353 s 2 

Copyright 2005 by the Office of Revisor of Statutes, State of Minnesota.