Thursday, December 06, 2012

Why Lawyers Aren't on Many Book Best Seller Lists



 For want of a handful of periods,clarity was lost.   Sentence length - around 65. Ouch. Enough said.  Legal jargon can be trying to read. From a press release  Kind of makes licensing agreements seem friendly in comparison. Or  ads for pharmaceuticals.
It may  have been a dark and stormy night when this was written or perhaps, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, but  the press release had to go out with proper disclosures."

John Grisham, where are you when we need you?

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  Words such as “expects,” “outlook”, “expectation,” “intends,” “assumes,” “believes” and “estimates,” variations of such words and similar expressions are also intended to identify forward-looking statements.  These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated herein.  Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include but are not limited to: changes in the company’s growth strategies; changes in the company’s future prospects, business development, results of operations and financial condition; changes to the online and computer threat environment and the endpoint security industry; competition from local and international companies, new entrants in the market and changes to the competitive landscape; the adoption of new, or changes to existing, laws and regulations; flaws in the assumptions underlying the calculation of the number of the company’s active users; the termination of or changes to the company’s relationships with its partners, including Google, and other third parties; changes in the company’s and its partners’ responses to privacy concerns; the ability of the company to successfully diversify its portfolio of search partners; the company’s plans to launch new products and online services and monetize its full user base; the company’s ability to attract and retain active and subscription users; the company’s ability to retain key personnel and attract new talent; the company’s ability to adequately protect its intellectual property; flaws in the company’s internal controls or  IT systems; the company’s geographic expansion plans; the anticipated costs and benefits of the company’s acquisitions; the outcome of ongoing or any future litigation or arbitration, including litigation or arbitration relating to intellectual property rights; the company’s legal and regulatory compliance efforts; and worldwide economic conditions and their impact on demand for the company’s products and services. Given these risks and uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

Below are a number of formulas that calculate readability of text.  

Readability Formula
Grade
32.5
37.4
17.9
24.8
38.2
Avg Grade Level
30.2

Text Statistics

Avg sentence length 65
Character Count
1,871
Syllable Count
627
Word Count
327
Sentence Count

2 comments:

David Ing (coevolving) said...

Wow, I feel bad when my academic writing is at Grade 14, and you show a commercial example of Grade 35.

kensek_discourses said...

Kind of ugly, isn't it. Perhaps they want obfuscation.