Franciscan Sisters History Project

The draft manuscript sent to the editor contained approximately 168,473 words. A desired outcome was reducing the number of words by 25%. The edited manuscript contains about 123,506 words, which is a reduction of about 27%. We are pleased with this result.

Our goal in hiring a professional editor was to have an objective review of the manuscript, helping with readability, consistency and accuracy. One benchmark was the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease Calculator. We entered text from a portion of Chapter 2 and came up with a score of 56.8, which is a 10-12 grade reading level. We set a goal of increasing readability to a score of 60, which would be an 8-9 grade level. Unfortunately, the score for the edited text came in at 49.4, an 11th grade reading level. Even though we didn't reach the desired score, we believe that we have a more readable book that will appeal to a broader audience. The editor was not too familiar with religious communities and asked for clarification and rewriting of certain sections. We believe this improved our book, making it easier for lay persons to understand.