Fact · Dictation for work and study
The SMOG index that Whalen uses measures the length of sentences and the number of long, multisyllabic words.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
In the source's own words
“Like many readability indices, SMOG looks to the length of sentences and the number of long multisyllabic words in each.”
Judicial Gobbledygook: The Readability of Supreme Court Writing, Ryan Whalen, Yale Law Journal Forum, 2015, Part I, Method.
Open the original- What it measures
- This is the reason the study treats long legal sentences and polysyllabic terms as harder to read.
- What it does not show
- The index is a formula, so it cannot judge meaning. It gives a proxy for difficulty, not a measure of comprehension.