Okay, try this:
- Go to the Google home page (www.google.com). Click where it says Advanced Search. You’ll get a bunch of options for the kind of search you want to do.
- Look for their new Reading Level feature. Click the dropdown and choose “annotate results with reading levels”.
- Then go to the line “Search within a site or domain” and type the address of a site you’re interested in. Let’s start by entering http://www.theglobeandmail.com and click the Advanced Search button. Here’s what I got:
Looks pretty reasonable for a general-interest newspaper. What about their main rival, the National Post? Let’s see:
Hmm, ever so slightly more demanding than the Globe? Perhaps that has something to do with their jailbird founder’s well-known fondness for verbal orotundity. Let’s have a look at a couple of sites I frequent, from low:
To high:
There’s a site called arXiv where scientific papers are published. How are they doing?
Whew, 100% advanced! I’d be worried they weren’t doing their job otherwise. Finally, this new version of my blog doesn’t seem to have been counted yet, but how does the old one stack up?
Woo-hoo! Right down the middle, baby! This brow is too high, while this one is too low, but this one is juuust right. 🙂
