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I am working on a bio for a development conference I am presenting at. My writing style causes my Flesch Reading Ease score to trend high. While I like what I have below I'd like to simplify it a bit without losing impact.

What are some options for simplification?

Andrew earned both a Bachelors and Masters of Business Administration with a concentration in management information systems from the University of New Mexico. Most recently he completed a Masters of Science in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Andrew has experience writing and deploying applications in Java, Ruby on Rails, Python, and JavaScript but primarily develops software in C#. He has developed and deployed many enterprise applications for Sandia National Laboratories. In the past year he has assisted Google and NASA with their mobile application development efforts for disaster responders. In addition to coding he is an advocate for agile software development practices and a .NET evangelist at Sandia. He has organized several development communities and both developers and management seek out his perspective on software development.

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I would abbreviate your degrees; chances are your audience will understand them. And then I would break down a few of your sentences into shorter sentences. Here's an edited version (impressive resume by the way!):

Andrew earned his BS and MBA from the University of New Mexico and his MS in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He primarily develops software in C#, but also has experience with Java, Ruby on Rails, Python, and JavaScript. He has developed and deployed many enterprise applications for Sandia National Laboratories. In 2011, he worked with Google and NASA to develop a mobile application for disaster responders. He is an advocate for agile software development practices and a .NET evangelist at Sandia. He has organized several{software?} development communities. Both developers and managers seek out his perspective on software development.

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Rather than "deployed": helped to launch

I've no idea what an "enterprise application" is, so perhaps that could be rephrased.

The problem with "he is an advocate for agile software development practices" is that "agile software development" is an actual jargon phrase. If you don't want it to mess up your readability score, you have to rephrase it entirely as something like "clean and efficient coding," which may not have the same meaning.

Rather than "a .NET evangelist," try "and the use of .NET."

Rather than "and both developers and management seek out his perspective on software development," maybe "making his opinions welcome to those at all skill levels."

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Here's how I'd write it, keeping in mind two things: 1.) I'm not a software developer and 2.) your audience probably is so you can use a lot more abbreviations. I can't tell you that I'm a fan of the alphabet soup but your readability score will significantly improve if your degrees, etc. are abbreviated. I've also tweaked some other bits:

Andrew earned both a BS and an MBA with a concentration in MIS from UNM and he recently acquired an MS in Software Engineering from CMU. Andrew prefers coding in C# but he also works in Java, JavaScript, RoR and Python. He develops applications for Sandia National Laboratories and in 2011 he helped Google and NASA develop mobile apps for disaster responders. In addition to coding he advocates for agile software development practices and is a .NET evangelist at Sandia. He manages a number of programming discussion boards and his views on software development are highly sought after by developers and management.

Bottom line: Your readability is 5. Mine is 30. I don't think you can get to plain English (65) when discussing software development. On a side note I'd add a small bit about you as a person at the end: While waiting for his code to compile Andrew reads shonen manga and takes his goldfish, Roscoe, for long walks in Roosevelt Park. Or whatever you do in your down time. (If you have down time, that is.)

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  • As a general note: Depending on the conference or the house style, that personal information may be snipped. One of my clients explicitly removes anything which isn't directly career-related (where the person lives, marital status, children, hobbies, etc.).
    – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum
    Commented Nov 8, 2016 at 12:17

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