Text Preparation Guidelines
Text Items and Measurement
Remember that the primary objective for measuring text using the Lexile Text Analyzer is to preserve complete sentences in the text while removing all incomplete sentence content. Before you analyze, make sure that only complete sentences are captured. Inclusion of non-prose text will negatively impact the Lexile measure result. Use the lists below to guide your text preparation process.
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Paragraphs of prose
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Dates within a complete sentence
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Names within a complete sentence
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Captions that are complete sentences
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Acronyms within a complete sentence
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Foreign words within a complete sentence
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Dialogue, sentences within quotation marks
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Text from informational text boxes containing complete sentences
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Parenthetical phrases or clauses within sentences (Remove parenthesis.)
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Text from bulleted or numbered lists in which the list items are complete sentences (Remove bullets or numbers.)
- URLs
- Page numbers
- Titles/Headings
- Tables and graphs
- Incomplete sentences
- Subtitles/ Subheadings
- Page headers and footers
- Phonetic pronunciation guides
- Greetings and closings from letters
- Captions that are incomplete sentences
- Sentences with unconventional punctuation
- Abbreviations, especially from instant messaging/text messaging
- Book Frontmatter (forewords, prologues, prefaces, tables of contents)
- The leading name and colon conventionally used in interview notation
- Book Backmatter (afterwords, epilogues, glossaries, indexes, bibliographies)
Editing Guidelines
For the best estimate of text complexity, the following editing guidelines that must be followed:
Remove ellipses in the middle of sentences and make sure they are flush when used as end punctuation.
The dog
was done running… hot, thirsty, and exhausted.
The
dog was done running hot, thirsty, and exhausted.
She
thought about it but could she . . .
She
thought about it but could she…
Remove parenthesis that surround complete sentences.
(The
conclusion covers all the major points from the argument.)
The
conclusion covers all the major points from the argument.
Em dashes (—) should be changed to dashes with a space on both sides.
Cats
are great—furry, cuddly, playful.
Cats
are great - furry, cuddly, playful.
Symbols should be removed (). Some of these are due to plain text conversion issues while others are due to the Lexile Analyzer not recognizing them.
*Horses
are related to hippopotamuses.
Horses
are related to hippopotamuses.
Every sentence must end with only one designated punctuation mark (period, question mark, exclamation mark, semicolon, colon). Remove any repetitive marks.
What do
you mean!?
What
do you mean?
And
when the door closed…?
And
when the door closed…
For sentences beginning or ending with a numeral symbol, a capital A should be placed flush in front of a symbol opening a sentence and flush behind a symbol closing a sentence.
5 dogs
ran past 1.
A5
dogs ran past 1A.