Nothing personal, but I was underwhelmed with this interview. Anyone purporting to be proficient in communicating should never end a sentence with a preposition: 'It will tell you what grade level you’re communicating at.' Just reading that makes my hair hurt. It also advertises the fact that the copy editors at CFA Institute Magazine were sound asleep. As he often did, Sir Winston Churchill said it best: "That is the kind of thing up with which I will not put."

Second, at no point did Mr. Brakke use the phrase 'active listening'. In delicate discussions--such as those with investment clients. . .or spouses--that is a key weapon in the ongoing struggle to avoid misunderstandings. This kind of listening occurs when the listener asks the speaker to pause so that said listener can sum up what s/he thinks s/he has heard so far. The speaker can then correct any misconceptions that have crept into the exchange.

Third, Mr. Brakke was not, in my view, as strong on the subject of adverbs as he should be. The typical adverb detracts from good writing. It dilutes, it obfuscates, and it wastes space. All of our writing (and speaking) will improve if we minimize the use of adverbs.

Fourth, the 'Hemingway Editor', such as it is, appears to be a money-making version of a longstanding tool called 'The Fog Index'; it, too, computes the grade level of a writing sample. There are free Copy-and-Paste Fog Index websites on the internet. Here is one such: http://gunning-fog-index.com.

Readers might be interested to know that the Bible, Shakespeare, and Mark Twain each have a Fog Index of about 6. The Reader's Digest aims for 8. The Wall Street Journal tries to go no higher than 10. Time magazine is about an 11. I read an academic paper several years ago that was 34+. Its authors had no idea what they were trying to say, and neither did I.

We strive for our report-writing to be in the 8.5-9.5 range. Anyone who thinks hitting that target in technical writing is easy hasn't tried it.

Finally, the article is silent on the fact that there is a feature built into Word that measures the ease of reading what one has written. It's not the Fog Index per se, but it is the Index's kissing cousin, the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. Its algorithm differs from the Fog Index's. To activate it in a Word document, click on the File tab, then Options, then Proofing. The title of the third bolded section on the page is 'When correcting spelling and grammar in Word.' Make sure that the 'Check grammar with spelling' feature is checked. Then check 'Show readability statistics' if it's not already checked.

You can test whether this feature is working by opening a Word file. Click on Review and then on Spelling & Grammar at the far left. When that feature has finished running, the Readability Statistics box opens. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level is at the bottom.

I hope these comments are constructive and helpful. I invite dialogue via [email protected].