From the Conch team
Your Flesch-Kincaid grade level is telling professors something you might not intend
A Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 16 does not mean your essay is brilliant — it usually means your sentences are too long and your words have too many syllables. Academic writing has a persistent myth: complexity signals intelligence. In reality, the clearest academic writers — the ones whose papers get cited and whose arguments land — write at an 11th to 12th grade level, not a college graduate level. They use precise vocabulary, not jargon for its own sake. The Hemingway Editor proved this point for a generation of bloggers. This tool applies the same principle to academic and professional writing, flagging run-on sentences and complex passages so you can decide whether the complexity is intentional or accidental. Intentional: keep it. Accidental: fix it.
Conch Tip: Target a Flesch Reading Ease score between 50–65 for college-level academic papers. Below 50 is genuinely difficult to read. Above 65 risks sounding oversimplified for a university audience.