Theos-Talk Archives (November 1995 Message tl00305)

MKR:
> A good question. One of the reasons may be due to the fact that some of
>the members who receive the magazine find it too difficult to read and
>understand. I myself have found several times the material to be very heavy
>and have read only the book reviews. This is just my opinion. Would be
>interesting to hear other feedback.

This goes back to an essay that I posted on Peacenet years
ago. At that time magazines like Quest and Gnosis were trying to be
"legit" in the eyes of the public and were courting PhD's as authors.
While this does adds legitamacy it also makes the reading harder--
what I called the Fog Index. PhDs tend to have a high fog index
even when writing for the general public. Anyway I found myself
sleeping through so many Gnosis articles that I quit my subscription
and have not seen an issue in years. I also have trouble with some
Quest articles but I think on the whole most have been readable.
The Fog Index for the average reader should be around 7. Most
PhDs write at the 18-21 range but deliberately lower this when
writing for the general public sometimes down to 12 or 13. But
even this is high for many people and frankly I am too lazy to
get out my dictionary all the time and long sentences with big
words tends to turn me off even though I am close to a PhD
myself.

Jerry S.