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.

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