A recently published paper and newly launched site "readability of wikipedia", states that wikipedia is too hard to read for people with not much knowledge of English. Along with the site, the findings were also published in "First Monday." According to the research, 73,5 per cent of the articles are "moderately hard" or even "very hard" On top of that, 45 per cent of the articles are "hard" or "very hard" to read.
The research was conducted using the Flesch Reading Ease test. This test analyzes a text based on the lengths of words and the lengths of the sentences. The higher the score, the easier a text is to read, which is detailed here. Interestingly, the "simple English version" of wikipedia is also deemed too hard to read, scoring 60 points, while 80 points would be expected for people with not much English knowledge.
You can read more in the source material:
readability of wikipedia
An online version of the paper (highly detailed in-depth stuff)
The research was conducted using the Flesch Reading Ease test. This test analyzes a text based on the lengths of words and the lengths of the sentences. The higher the score, the easier a text is to read, which is detailed here. Interestingly, the "simple English version" of wikipedia is also deemed too hard to read, scoring 60 points, while 80 points would be expected for people with not much English knowledge.
You can read more in the source material: