Another Perpective on Plain Language

Click Media discusses proposal writing, adding:

"Plain language, especially English, is not always simple.  Not only do your words need to be efficient and easy to understand, but they need to be warm and engaging as well.  Your words need to compel your reader to carry on."

National Institutes of Health Awards

The 2008-2009 NIH Plain Language Award Ceremony will be held Tuesday, June 2, 2009, 1:00 p.m. Lipsett Auditorium, Bethesda, Maryland and will feature Pulitzer Prize winner Jonathan Capehart, editorial writer for The Washington Post.

The annual NIH Plain Language Award ceremony honors outstanding NIH communication products including revised websites, fact sheets, multi-media presentations, and other materials, including items designed for Spanish-speaking audiences. To view the 2007-2008 event, see http://videocast.nih.gov/. For archived awards information: http://www.nih.gov/clearcommunication/plarchive/index.htm

Read more...

Clear Language - plain language by Workplace Education Manitoba (2009)

An adaptation of one of my articles has been created by Workplace Education Manitoba. My original is available here or here.

Visual presentation on plain language

Here is great piece on the benefits of simplicity in communication. Delivered last year at the Symposium of the US Plain Language Center, it is from Irene Etzkorn, Group Director of Simplification, Siegel+Gale, Amazingly Simple Stuff. (It is PowerPoint and takes awhile to download at 32MB)


Find it on this page http://www.centerforplainlanguage.org/events/symposium_2008.html

or try this one: http://tinyurl.com/8gab3w

3rd Anniversary Reassessment

I started this blog 3 years ago today.

I am still interested in the same concerns, so this blog will continue "advocating plain language, clear design, sensitivity to audience concerns, and civility".

I will be semi-retired in 2009, so I may have more time to devote to blogging. But I will be more concerned with plain language in its applications for a general audience. I have worked mainly with legal writers in past, but that is the retired part of my work. Which leaves me talking to government, business, and other writers about plain language.

Social networking has blossomed in these three years and I have followed my friends in using various services. Now I am trying to organize my practices in what seems to me a rational use of the newer services.

I will tweet to Twitter the interesting links and connections I find. So that's @CherylStephens on Twitter.

I will share my news, photos, and art with friends on Facebook. Friend me as Cheryl Stephens on Facebook.

I am LinkedIn but I don't find much use for that service.

I am using Blogger to share what I have learned and am still learning about communication issues. Building Rapport is at http://www.plainlanguage.com/blog/

I hang with the artsy-crafty Glitter Sisters at Violette's blog: violette.ca

And I participate in a Yahoo Group listserve on plain language which requires you to join PLAIN to participate in that conversation.

So I'll see you around, eh?

Plain Language Workshops

Linda Dessau reports on a session she attended, sponsored by the Editors' Association of Canada called Plain Language: Building Results and was presented by Frances Peck.

Frances shared this definition of plain language: "The orderly and clear presentation of complex information." At the time, she was going through a long list of myths about plain language - reasons that writers sometimes argue against it.

Some of the myths were that plain language is just "dummy-ing down" the content (when, in fact, it's just a clearer way of presenting it) or that it's boring (when, in fact, it's much more engaging to read something that actually makes sense). In her words, documents that are difficult to understand quickly become disposable.

The Vancouver branch is holding a session this week:

Plain Language: The Basics
Saturday, November 29, 10:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
SFU Harbour Centre, room 2245
Instructor: Peter Moskos

Le'go that LEGO

LEGO is in the news, having lost its trademark in a European tribunal.

Makes this a good time to share with you the very plain language product description filed with the Canadian court by LEGO's lawyers here:

A rectilinear array of uniform, smooth-sided, flat-topped, cylindrical, co-planar protuberances,the proportions of height, diameter and center-to-center spacing of which are approximately 2 : 5 : 8. Where there is more than one row of protuberances, they are arranged in mutually orthogonal rows and columns.

Well, maybe not so plain, eh?

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June 2008: Lego brick wall repairs of artist Jan Vormann and friends in Bocchignano, Italy Photograph: Rex Features

An example of a simple list

I just came across this sentence on a website for a service center for people who cannot afford a lawyer. The problems with it are (at least):
1. the sentence is left-handed (three items consented to)
2. the sentence is too long
3. the sentence cries out for a list.

Consent to share information
I consent to the information on this form, the type of issue I have, and the record of services I receive at the center being shared as needed among those who work for the Self-help Center.

Rewritten:

I consent to having my personal information shared among those who work for the Self-help Center. Information means:

the information on this form,
the type of issue I have, and
the record of services I receive at the center.

That is just a quick effort at the job.

Rally Support for Plain Language Law

Support the U.S. Plain Language Act

A proposed law requiring the US federal government to use plain language on certain forms and documents is stuck in a Senate committee, due to the opposition of the legal staff of Utah Senator Robert Bennett.

The Plain Language in Government Communications Act of 2008 (S-2291) requires some federal government agencies to write some documents in plain language in the future. It calls for using plain language when writing new government documents about:

• Government requirements
• Government programs
• Obtaining government benefits
• Obtaining government services

This is not a pie-in-the-sky idea. It is needed to ensure that government documentation uniformly meets legal expectations. Remember this 1998 case?

Walters v. United States Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Certain government forms were so difficult to read that they violated due process requirements of "notice" of legal consequences. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that those facing INS charges of document fraud did not get due process. The forms used by INS did not "simply and plainly communicate" the possibility of deportation. The court ordered INS to redo the forms and not to deport anyone based on the inadequate forms

There is a FAQ about the proposed law at plainlanguagelaw.com.

Here are three ways Americans can help move this law forward:

1. Send a letter to Senator Bennett supporting the bill. The letter can be brief. Mail the letter to Hon. Bob Bennett, 431 Dirksen Building, Washington, DC 20510-4403. If you can, please also fax it to the attention of Shawn Gunnarson at (202) 228-1168.

2. If you live in California, call Senator Feinstein's office. She chairs the Rules Committee. As chair of the Rules Committee, she can intervene. If you are not in California, her D.C. office is (202) 224-3841.

3. Contact these Republican cosponsors, if you live in their states. Call the D.C. office and ask them to get Bennett to move on it.
• Susan Collins, Maine (202) 224-2523
• Thad Cochran, Missouri 202-224-5054
• George Voinovich, Ohio (202) 224-3353

Day 2 of my blog tour

My world-wide blog tour continues:

Helping Clients Who Have Language Challenges (Personal Injury and Social Security)
Robert A. Kraft blog
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/367487/31371718

C is for Consent

The Wall Street Journal report "The Informed Patient" starts with this unsurprising info:
"Informed consent may be the biggest misnomer in medicine: Studies show that most patients don't read the forms they sign before undergoing surgery or medical treatment. More than half of those who do read the forms don't understand them, and only a quarter of forms include all of the data patients need to make an informed decision."

Beware the AutoAntonym

Today's post is inspired by a recent Word of the Day from dictionary.com

Word of the Day Archive
Wednesday December 19, 2007

discursive \dis-KUR-siv\, adjective:
1. Passing from one topic to another; ranging over a wide field; digressive; rambling.
2. Utilizing, marked by, or based on analytical reasoning -- contrasted with intuitive.

Discursive comes from Latin discurrere, "to run in different directions, to run about, to run to and fro," from dis-, "apart, in different directions" + currere, "to run."

Wikipedia

A word that can be used, depending on the circumstance, to mean both of two opposite concepts.

• Auto-antonyms are the same words that can mean the opposite of themselves under different contexts or having separate definitions
  • enjoin (to prohibit, issue injunction; to order, command)
  • fast (moving quickly; fixed firmly in place)
  • cleave (to split; to adhere)
  • sanction (punishment, prohibition ; permission)
  • stay (remain in a specific place, postpone; guide direction, movement)

Sanctions are frequently called for on the politcial stage and in the law. Sanction is one of those duplicitous words-- it can can mean both reward and punishment.

This is a type of word to avoid. You cannot count on you reader giving the same interpretation to the circumstances that you do. So you cannot be sure your meaning will be understood. Far better to choose a simpler word.

The Rule to Follow Even If It does Not Apply!

General Rules and Regulations
promulgated under the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934

Rule 13a-19 -- Plain English Presentation of Specified Information

---

1. Any information included or incorporated by reference in a report filed under section 13(a) of the Act that is required to be disclosed pursuant to Item 402, 403, 404 or 407 of Regulation S-B or Item 402, 403, 404 or 407 of Regulation S-K must be presented in a clear, concise and understandable manner. You must prepare the disclosure using the following standards:
   
   
   1. Present information in clear, concise sections, paragraphs and sentences;
      
      
   2. Use short sentences;
      
      
   3. Use definite, concrete, everyday words;
      
      
   4. Use the active voice;
      
      
   5. Avoid multiple negatives;
      
      
   6. Use descriptive headings and subheadings;
      
      
   7. Use a tabular presentation or bullet lists for complex material, wherever possible;
      
      
   8. Avoid legal jargon and highly technical business and other terminology;
      
      
   9. Avoid frequent reliance on glossaries or defined terms as the primary means of explaining information. Define terms in a glossary or other section of the document only if the meaning is unclear from the context. Use a glossary only if it facilitates understanding of the disclosure; and
      
      
   10. In designing the presentation of the information you may include pictures, logos, charts, graphs and other design elements so long as the design is not misleading and the required information is clear. You are encouraged to use tables, schedules, charts and graphic illustrations that present relevant data in an understandable manner, so long as such presentations are consistent with applicable disclosure requirements and consistent with other information in the document. You must draw graphs and charts to scale. Any information you provide must not be misleading.
       
       

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Note to Rule 240.13a-20.

In drafting the disclosure to comply with this section, you should avoid the following:

1. Legalistic or overly complex presentations that make the substance of the disclosure difficult to understand;
   
   
2. Vague "boilerplate" explanations that are imprecise and readily subject to different interpretations;
   
   
3. Complex information copied directly from legal documents without any clear and concise explanation of the provision(s); and
   
   
4. Disclosure repeated in different sections of the document that increases the size of the document but does not enhance the quality of the information.

---

Regulatory History

71 FR 53158, 53261, Sept. 8, 2006.

Plain Language measure sets guidelines for tax, college aid and other forms

THonline.com
Braley bill would reduce government legalese

By MARY RAE BRAGG TH staff writer

Dubuque's congressman, Rep. Bruce Braley, introduced a bill last week that would require the federal government to communicate in easy-to-understand language.

"Anyone who's done their own taxes knows the headache of trying to understand pages and pages of confusing forms and instructions," Braley said. "There is no reason why the federal government can't write these forms and other public documents in a way we can all understand."

The Plain Language in Government Communications Act, HR 3584, sets guidelines for documents like tax returns, college aid applications and forms from the Department of Veteran Affairs. The bill's guidelines instruct document authors to use short, simple words; use "you" and other pronouns when speaking to the reader; use short sentences and paragraphs; and avoid legal, foreign and technical jargon.

The bill, which has two Democratic and two Republican cosponsors, was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, one of the committees Braley serves on.

According to a report appearing on www.plainlanguage.gov, "Plain talk" can result in higher revenue for the government instituting it.

An official in Washington state says their Department of Revenue estimates it has collected about $5 million in additional revenue since rewriting one explanatory tax collection letter in 2003.

New Books on Plain Language Implementation

My co-author, Kate Harrison Whiteside, and I have released two books on LuLu, in The Plain Language Wizardry Series.

These are downloadable and printable but the second is also an interactive ebook:


Plain Language in Organizations: An Action Plan

and

Website Usability: A Plain Language Toolbox

The previews provide each book's table of contents.

Literacy Challenges to Delivering Administrative Justice

In May, I presented at the Council of Canadian Administrative Tribunal's 4th International Conference, in Vancouver, British Columbia - "Administrative Justice Without Borders".

I had been working with the CCAT for some 18 months on this issue. CCAT released a book at the conference on plain language and administrative practice. It will be available soon online.

Our handout at the conference was a 12-page summary of the previous publication by the Literacy and Access to Justice Project. That is is now available here. The 100-page original is available here.

Some pictures are here; not great pix because of the blinding Vancouver sun!

Another Myth Exposed

Stephanie West Allen does us the favor of collecting comments and exposing the misinterpretation of the results of a communication study which has taken on mythic proportions--being taught in university communication courses.

You know, it is the one that says that the "meaning of communication is derived 7% from the words spoken, 38% from the tonality, and 55% from body language"--turns out that only applies to ambigous communication.

When the plain language of the message leaves no doubts, meaning need not be found in the external clues.