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Sarah Palin Judged By Writing Scores

Recently, AOL Wired News submitted thousands of Sarah Palin’s publicly released e-mails to two writing analysts. The goal was to rate Palin’s writing by grade level.

Michael McLaughlin reports: “…two writing analysts who independently evaluated 24,000 pages of the former governor’s emails. They came back in agreement that Palin composed her messages at an eighth-grade level, an excellent score for a chief executive, they said.”

Though it doesn’t seem very high, eighth-grade-level writing is clear, concise, and easy to understand. The reporter sites Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (9.1) and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech (8.8) for comparison.

I’m sure that many of Palin’s critics were waiting for low writing scores so that they could slam her intelligence with poor writing skills as evidence. Regardless, this incident proves that public figures and leaders are judged by their writing skills. Take care to draft careful e-mails because you never know who might be reading them.

(Photo by david_shankbone)

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