You can take the WritersDiet Test online at www.writersdiet.com, or you can perform the test manually with a coloured highlighter. Based on a simple algorithm, the test calculates the ‘fitness’ of your writing in each of five grammatical categories. The higher the percentage of highlighted words in each category, the ‘flabbier’ your diagnosis, which can be interpreted as follows:
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Lean |
Fat-free prose |
|---|---|
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Fit & trim |
In excellent condition |
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Needs toning |
Would benefit from a light workout |
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Flabby |
Judicious editing required |
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Heart attack |
May call for editorial liposuction! |
The WritersDiet Test prompts you to think about how, why and how often you use the highlighted words; however, you are not expected to delete them all or banish them completely. You might even decide, in the end, to make no changes at all. The ‘mirror, mind and zipper’ test imparts far more useful information than a measuring tape or bathroom scale ever could. Do you look good? Do you feel good? Do your words fit you well?
The WritersDiet Test offers a diagnosis, not a prescription; a pair of tinted glasses, not a magic bullet. It is up to you to make intelligent use of the targeted feedback the test provides. Sentences, like people, come in many shapes and sizes, and the world would become a very boring place indeed if we all wrote – or looked – exactly the same way!
Select a sample of your writing and excerpt a passage of exactly 100 words, not including citations and quotations. Do not worry if the passage finishes mid-sentence. Highlight your text as follows:
• Verbs: With an orange pencil, highlight all the be-verbs: am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been.
• Nouns: With a blue pencil, highlight all the nouns that end with the following suffixes: ion, ism, ty, ment, ness, ance or ence.
– Include plurals (occurrences) and nouns used as adjectives (precision tool).
– Do not include proper nouns (Felicity, Namibia) or nouns not rooted in an adjective or verb (prism, city, dance).
• Prepositions: With a green pencil, highlight all the prepositions in your writing sample: about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, beyond, by, down, during, for, from, in, inside, into, like, near, of, off, on, onto, out, outside, over, past, since, through, throughout, till, to, toward, under, underneath, until, up, upon, with, within, without.
– Highlight to even when it occurs as part of an infinitive verb construction, e.g., ‘to run’.
– When two prepositions occur together (‘He got up from the sofa’), count them separately.
• Ad-words: With a yellow pencil, highlight all the adjectives and adverbs that end with the following suffixes: able, ac, al, ant, ary, ent, ful, ible, ic, ive, less, ous.
• ‘Waste words’: With a pink pencil, highlight the words it, this, that and there.
Now calculate your individual fitness ratings for each category and determine your overall fitness rating:
• Count your highlighted words and record this in the appropriate box in each of the five columns here:
• Read across to the Fitness rating column to find your ratings for each category, and note these in the chart below.
• Assign a scoring value for each of your five individual ratings: Lean = 1; Fit & trim = 2; Needs toning = 4; Flabby = 16; Heart attack = 32.
• Add the five values to find your total score. This will determine your Overall fitness rating. Total scores of 5–7 = Lean; 8–11 = Fit & trim; 12–23 = Needs toning; 24–63 = Flabby; 64+ = Heart attack.
Scholars have also spilled a great deal of ink to demonstrate how a lack of unity may contribute to a social movement organization’s failure or collapse, and numerous empirical studies suggest that division can lead to the collapse of an organization or a structural coalition. Yet not all organizations fall apart because of internal division. Given the size and longevity of NOW, it provides an apt case for examining how organizations withstand internal differences. Sociologist Jo Reger, for example, uses the case of the New York City chapter of NOW to suggest that an organization can develop multiple and varying …60
• Find the five individual fitness ratings for Example 7 by using the Scoring chart.
• Assign the correct value to each of the individual ratings: Lean = 1; Fit & trim = 2; Needs toning = 4; Flabby = 16; Heart attack = 32.
• Add the five values to find a total score for Example 7. This will determine the Overall fitness rating. Total scores of 5–7 = Lean; 8–11 = Fit & trim; 12–23 = Needs toning; 24–63 = Flabby; 64+ = Heart attack.
Comments: This 100-word excerpt from the Journal of the History of Sexuality scores ‘Lean’ or ‘Fit & trim’ in four out of five categories. However, the passage earns a ‘heart attack’ rating in the Nouns category and thus a ‘Flabby’ Overall rating (1 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 32 = 38). The opening phrase, ‘Scholars have spilled a great deal of ink’, supplies the only concrete detail in an otherwise abstract passage. The author might consider reducing the high number of ‘zombie nouns’ (12) and adding more concrete language.
Select a recent sample of your own writing: a finished, polished piece of prose that, in your opinion, represents your work at its best.
Go to the WritersDiet website (www.writersdiet.com) and cut and paste a 100- to 1000-word extract from your writing sample into the text box. Shorter excerpts (100–500 words) work best for targeting specific paragraphs; longer samples (500–1000 words) give more of a ‘big picture’ view and can help you spot recurring patterns in your writing.
• Click ‘Run the test’. Your words will light up in colour, and you will see an individual ‘WritersDiet fitness rating’ for each of the five word categories, as well as an overall rating.
• To save your results as a downloadable pdf, click ‘See full diagnosis’.
• To run the test again, click ‘Test new sample’.
For best results:
• Fine-tune your diagnosis by clicking the Advanced tab on the text box and trying out the different options.
• Read all the information on the website carefully, especially the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
• Test a variety of samples to get a feel for the test before making adjustments to specific passages.
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live …
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WritersDiet fitness ratings (for the full speech): |
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|---|---|
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verbs |
Fit & trim |
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nouns |
Fit & trim |
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prepositions |
Lean |
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adjectives/adverbs |
Lean |
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it, this, that, there |
Heart attack |
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Overall |
Flabby |
Comments: If Abraham Lincoln had carried a laptop computer with wifi access on the train to Gettysburg, he might have pasted the 269 words of his hastily written speech into the WritersDiet Test and noticed a few verbal tics: the double that, the repeated its. Would he then have tweaked his ‘Flabby’ text to make it ‘Fit & trim’? Maybe, maybe not. As a politician, Lincoln would no doubt have understood that a feedback tool designed mainly for academic writers will not necessarily apply to speechwriting. And as an experienced rhetorician, he would have had the self-confidence to make his own decisions rather than relying on the advice of an automated computer program.
