Editing Readability (section)

=== Golub Syntactic Density Score ===
{{unsourced section|date=September 2024}}
The Golub Syntactic Density Score was developed by Lester Golub in 1974. It is among a smaller subset of readability formulas that concentrate on the syntactic features of a text. To calculate the reading level of a text, a sample of several hundred words is taken from the text. The number of words in the sample is counted, as are the number of T-units. A T-unit is defined as an independent clause and any dependent clauses attached to it. Other syntactical units are then counted and entered into the following table:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
| 1. || Words/T-unit || .95 || X _________ || ___
|-
| 2. || Subordinate clauses/T-unit || .90 || X _________ || ___
|-
| 3. || Main clause word length (mean) || .20 || X _________ || ___
|-
| 4. || Subordinate clause length (mean) || .50 || X _________ || ___
|-
| 5. || Number of Modals (will, shall, can, may, must, would...) || .65 || X _________ || ___
|-
| 6. || Number of ''Be'' and ''Have'' forms in the auxiliary || .40 || X _________ || ___
|-
| 7. || Number of Prepositional Phrases || .75 || X _________ || ___
|-
| 8. || Number of Possessive nouns and pronouns || .70 || X _________ || ___
|-
| 9. || Number of Adverbs of Time (when, then, once, while...) || .60 || X _________ || ___
|-
| 10. || Number of gerunds, participles, and absolutes Phrases || .85 || X _________ || ___
|}

Users add the numbers in the right hand column and divide the total by the number of T-units. Finally, the quotient is entered into the following table to arrive at a final readability score.

{| class="wikitable"
!SDS
|0.5
|1.3
|2.1
|2.9
|3.7
|4.5
|5.3
|6.1
|6.9
|7.7
|8.5
|9.3
|10.1
|10.9
|-
!Grade
|1
|2
|3
|4
|5
|6
|7
|8
|9
|10
|11
|12
|13
|14
|}