Theos-Talk Archives (November 1995 Message tl00321)

Jerry Schuler wrote:

>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.

Jerry:

I am glad that you have expressed my thoughts better than myself. I
hope everybody understands what we are trying to say.

As for myself I would be willing to let TSA stop sending me Quest
and reduce my National Annual Dues as it would save me some money which I
would be glad to give to the local lodge I belong to. It would also save
some trees.

...Doss