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Grammarly Study Gives Top House and Senate Candidates a 92 for Clarity
[October 02, 2014]

Grammarly Study Gives Top House and Senate Candidates a 92 for Clarity


SAN FRANCISCO --(Business Wire)--

More than 9 out of 10 candidates in the 10 most hotly contested house and senate races are clear and straightforward in their political positions, according to new findings from Grammarly, the world's leading automated proofreader.

Grammarly analyzed campaign websites to gauge how clearly candidates communicate their stances on issues. The company found that candidates are clear, with a median clarity score of 92 percent. All candidates scored 80 percent or above. Republican David Perdue (News - Alert), candidate for one of Georgia's U.S. Senate seats, topped the study with a perfect score.

The Alaska Senate race holds the distinction of the nation's clearest political contest with Republican Dan Sullivan scoring a 99 and Democratic challenger Mark Begich scoring a 94. While there was a wider dispersion among candidates' clarity scores, the parties overall were very close with Republicans narrowly edging out Democrats by a 93 - 91 margin.

"Grammarly's software provides a unique perspective on how candidates use language," said Grammarly CEO Brad Hoover. "Following candidates' language helps voters make an informed choice." Added Grammarly Chief Linguist John McWhorter, "Clumsy prose is often a clue that a writer either has little to say or is trying not to say something too directly."

Grammarly created a special algorithm to screen text for 33 errors that can lead to ambiguous or confusing writing, such as redundant prepositions, wordiness, an incomplete comparison, unclear antecedent and squinting modifiers. The tool produces a clarity score by normalizing the number of mistakes to text size. Candidates that do not post specific positions on issues on their campaign website were excluded from the analysis.

Key findings include:





Segment     Score (%)
Overall Median     92
Senate Median     94
House Median     90
Democrat Median     91
Republican Median     93
   

The analysis of Senate races found:

Political Candidate     State     Score (%)
Mark Begich (D)     Alaska     94
Dan Sullivan (R)     Alaska     99
Michelle Nunn (D)     Georgia     87
David Perdue (R)     Georgia     100
Alison Lundergan Grimes (D)     Kentucky     90
Mitch McConnell (R)     Kentucky     -
Bill Cassidy (R)     Louisiana     94
Mary Landrieu (D)     Louisiana     92
Kay Hagan (D)     North Carolina     94
Thom Tillis (R)     North Carolina     92
       

Individual findings from the research on the House included:

Political Candidate     District     Score (%)
Ron Barber (D)     Arizona 2nd     93
Martha McSally (R)     Arizona 2nd     80
Ro Khanna (D)     California 17th     87
Mike Honda (News - Alert) (D)     California 17th     90
David Jolly (R)     Florida 13th     83
Alex Sink (D)     Florida 13th     -
Staci Appel (D)     Iowa 3rd     90
David Young (News - Alert) (R)     Iowa 3rd     87
Richard Tisei (R)     Massachusetts 6th     93
Seth Moulton (D)     Massachusetts 6th     92
       

About Grammarly

Grammarly (www.grammarly.com) improves communication among the world's more than two billion native and non-native English writers. Its flagship product, the Grammarly Editor, corrects contextual spelling mistakes, checks for more than 250 common grammar errors, enhances vocabulary usage, and provides citation suggestions. More than 3 million registered users worldwide trust Grammarly's products, which are also licensed by more than 100 leading universities and corporations. Grammarly is a privately held company with offices in San Francisco and Kiev. To learn more, visit Grammarly's website (www.grammarly.com) or connect on Facebook (News - Alert) (www.facebook.com/grammarly).


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