How to Edit a Draft by Reading It at the Speed Your Audience Will

When you edit your own writing, you know what it's meant to say, so your eyes skip ahead. Your readers don't have that advantage. Reading your draft at the speed they will, neither faster nor slower, shows you where it drags, confuses or loses them.

How fast people read

A 2019 analysis of nearly 200 reading studies by psychologist Marc Brysbaert estimated that adults read non-fiction silently at about 238 words per minute on average, and aloud at about 183. Speeds vary a lot between people and drop for difficult or technical text.

Work out your piece's reading time

Divide the word count by a typical speed. A 1,500-word article takes about six to seven minutes at 230 words per minute. Word Counter counts the words in any text you select on a page and shows the reading time at a speed you set, from 50 to 1,000 words per minute. The reading time calculator works for pasted text.

Edit at reading speed

1. Read it in one sitting at a normal pace, as a reader would. Don't stop to fix things; just mark where you lost interest or had to re-read.
2. Time yourself. If it takes much longer than the expected reading time, the text is probably harder than it should be.
3. Go back to the marks and fix them: cut, simplify or add a heading.

Listen to it

Hearing your draft read aloud is one of the best ways to catch clumsy sentences and missing words. Chrome's Reading mode can read pages aloud, Microsoft Edge has Read aloud built in, and Word and Google Docs have text-to-speech options. Listening forces you to take the text at the listener's pace.

What to look for

• Slow starts: if the point doesn't appear in the first few sentences, readers may leave.
• Long paragraphs that feel heavy at reading speed. See paragraph length for the web.
• Jargon you understand but readers won't.
• Repetition that feels fine when skimming but tiresome when read in full.
• Missing steps in instructions.

Check readability

The readability checker scores how easy the text is. Use it as a guide, not a target. See readability scores.

Test with a real reader

Finally, ask someone from your audience to read it and tell you where they slowed down. Their marks are worth more than any tool. See measuring how far people read.