What Represents the Essence of Textual Coherence and How to Assess Its Level
To evaluate the quality of a text, it is sufficient to rely on certain metrics, specifically: uniqueness, relevancy, and clarity. Both users and search engines consistently favor creative, authentic content over publications that rely on formulaic expressions and banal conclusions. This is precisely why it is extraordinarily important that the first criterion always remains exceptionally high (between 90 and 100%).
Relevancy, on the other hand, should aim for a threshold of no less than 30% – this will attest to the author’s serious engagement in researching the subject matter and their effort to break it down into relevant and usable data.
Clarity is generally measured between 3% and 6%. If the article focuses on a specifically narrow theme, deviations in the direction of greater allowance are permissible, since in such cases it’s essential to find a more fitting synonym for the word, which isn’t always achievable. However, in relation to SEO-focused publications, especially for social media and longreads, it is better to avoid “template-ness.” Later in the article, we will delve into what constitutes clarity, how to achieve it, and when it’s necessary to reduce it.
What is clarity in text and how is it measured?
Clarity of text reflects the frequency of usage of a particular word or phrase within the text. By its definition, it is easy to determine how saturated a publication is with “keywords” or conversely, identify shortages in the use of target queries.
For instance, if the phrase “place an order” appears 3 times in an article of 5,000 characters, it seems organic within the total mass. However, if it appears more than 10 times among all remaining keywords, its presence will immediately stand out to readers and even confuse them.
Typically, clarity is measured in two ways:
- Classic: to calculate, one needs to derive the square root from the number of occurrences of the most commonly used word;
- Academic: to calculate, one needs to divide the number of occurrences of the most frequently used word by the total number of words used in the article. The resulting figure is then multiplied by 100%.
Today, for clarity calculations, special services like text.ru are used. Such sites operate on a free basis and, in addition to template-like assessments, automatically provide results of checks for relevance in the text, along with its uniqueness level. Analysis takes literally a couple of minutes. To check your text, just insert it into the designated field on the site, click the “check for uniqueness” button, and wait for the system’s conclusion. If necessary, insert the relevant edits and recheck the material.
What leads to an increase in text clarity?
Redundancies in the text can arise for several reasons:
- It is necessary to write a more extensive article on a narrowly specialized topic: the optimal resolution to the problem may either be a reduction of the volume of publication or its “spreading out”;
- The article addresses an exceptionally complicated subject: for a layperson far from the realm of science, writing an article with a technical bias isn’t easy. The work requires persistence and patience;
- The writer does not grasp how to fulfill the task set before them: no matter how hard they try, they don’t understand what the task is about? They may need to read similar publications, watch related videos, and immerse themselves in their thematic area. They should only start writing after gathering useful facts from different sources;
- Emotions prevail over reason: avoiding phrases laden with unnecessary emotional embellishment is crucial, as is utilizing more general vocabulary;
- A short text contains a multitude of keywords: relevant queries need to be organically interspersed throughout the article while evenly distributing across the text. Conversely, a reader will find it challenging to absorb the provided information if it’s overstuffed.
How to act to reduce text clarity?
If your written publication contains many redundancies, try to lower the clarity metric using methods derived from the following:
Review the semantics
The semantic core consists of words and phrases that most thoroughly convey the meaning of the publication. Assessing the semantics of the text can be done using sites like Advago.
Reduce the usage of stop words to a minimum
Stop words are unnecessary expressions that occupy space but fail to clarify content (this includes such terms as places, verbs in infinitive form, conjunctions).
Expand the synonyms list
To reduce clarity, replace frequently recurring phrases with synonyms.
Make the text longer
Academic clarity is calculated based on the total number of words in the text; therefore, if there is excessive redundancy, try adding a couple more blocks to the article.
Approach the matter with seriousness
To prevent the work from becoming overwhelming, prepare yourself. Think through your action plan down to the smallest details, concentrating on one important task at a time. Full immersion in the matter can help finish the task faster and, at the same time, lead to unexpected results and creative solutions.
Conclusion
Articles where the level of clarity exceeds acceptable norms become complex for reading and understanding; thus, users often refuse to study such materials and seek to leave the site in search of better content.
However, the degree of redundancy can easily be reduced with various practices. The main approach is to act step by step and methodically. In doing so, it’s important not to forget to take breaks. When you engage for too long in a single task, your focus diminishes, and the quality of your resulting publication suffers. Therefore, it’s exceptionally important during work to shift your attention to other tasks from time to time.
