A quick, easy, and imperfect fix for using the Binomial Effect Size Display for correlations with continuous variables: divide by three

The Binomial Effect Size Display (BESD; Rosenthal & Rubin, 1982) is a widely used heuristic for translating Pearson's r into a proportion of concordant pairs, yet it is known to systematically overestimate this proportion when applied to continuous variables. While Dunlap's (1994) CLr statistic correctly estimates the proportion of concordant pairs under normality, its reliance on an arcsine transformation limits its utility as a mental shorthand. This note proposes BESDc, a simple approximation of CLr obtained by dividing r by 3 rather than 2 before adding .5. Across the range of correlations typically observed in psychological research (r < .7), BESDc departs from CLr by less than .01, substantially outperforming the BESD. A practical decision tree is recommended: reporting the observed proportion of concordant pairs from raw data where possible, using CLr with a calculator when raw data are unavailable, and applying BESDc as a rapid mental approximation when neither option is convenient. BESDc will underestimate effect sizes for r > .7 and is not recommended for r > .9, where underestimation becomes larger than .05.