Building Rapport

I’ve just posted over at the PlainLanguageInPlainEnglish group blog. Go see: Magically simple process, but not quick and easy

Today we have a guest post from Dominique Joseph.

Is it possible or even useful to legislate ‘plain language’?

This question has been asked, at least, since “The Decline and fall of gobbledygook: Report on plain language document”, produced by the Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Bankers’ Association joint committee in 1990.

There is more complete and recent info, but it still raises good points. I will start with the committee’s point of view, and then provide the definitions for the subjective and objective approaches (since those two terms appear in the point of view).

THE JOINT COMMITTEE’S POINT OF VIEW:

“The Joint Committee does not believe that plain language documentation is a suitable matter to be dealt with in legislation. The problem with plain language legislation is that it ignores the fact that plain language drafting is a process rather than the application of a fixed set of rules.

Thus, in the case of the “objective approach, one could apply the rules set out in the Connecticut statute and still have a document that is unintelligible. In the case of the “subjective” approach, a problem arises because there is no commonly accepted standard of what is readable. A person compelled to draft a “readable” document by statute is unlikely to strive for the highest standard of readability.

Legislation can be effective when its object is to prohibit persons from engaging in specified types of undesirable conduct. Legislation is not effective when it tries to require individuals to undertake some positive action that requires time, skill, effort, and commitment.”

SUBJECTIVE and OBJECTIVE APPROACHES:

“The legislative approaches to date have taken two forms. The first approach, adopted by New York and the Alberta legislation, has been called the “subjective” approach because of the general requirement that agreements and contracts be written in a “clear manner using words with common everyday meanings.” Beyond this general guideline, the subjective approach does not define plain language nor does this approach establish specific criteria for a plain language document.

[...] The second approach to plain language legislation, adopted by Connecticut, has been called the “objective” approach because of specific requirements defining what constitutes a plain language document. Typically, this approach stipulates the average length of sentences, the size, and style of typeface used, the length of lines and the size of margins. In addition, this approach may require the document to score in a particular range on a readability test, such as the Flesch test.”

A very interesting puzzle, indeed!

I had planned to blog about writing with clarity under the monthly campaign by Joanna Young at Confident Writing .

But when I started scanning items in my blog reader, I was reminded that today is Blog Action Day to save the environment.

My mind was working on the problem of relating writing with clarity, integrity, and authenticity to the environment, which was raising something about a post I saw which draws a distinction between the market and the audience for public relations writers.

When I got to Confident Writing, Joanna’s post is on the day’s topic. I only scanned her post, but she seems to suggest that business cut back on paper if we writers cut down the number of words we take to say anything, and thus reduce the number of trees cut down.

It is a great idea, but it triggered my main concern with all the other environmental posts I read this morning. They were all aimed at individuals while major corporations and legislators and government get a free ride today.

Now back to the post at All Book Marketing:

In book marketing you cater to a target market (people who will buy your book). In book publicity and author publicity you cater to a target audience (includes your target market, but you can have many target audiences in addition to them, like niche groups, specific members of the media, etc.).

After reading this, I was playing with how to extrapolate the distinction to use it in teaching writing process.

Now my head is in a twirl. We have these issues to pull together to try to get a blog post up today:

1. Save the environment.
2. Write with clarity, integrity, and authenticity.
3. Apply the distinction between market and audience to our problem.
4. What is the message?

So I took a nap.

I, Cheryl Stephens, say this with clarity from a place of integrity and authenticity and, with genuine respect for my brother and sister bloggers, I offer this message:

• The environment is our lives. We must defend our lives and the lives of those who follow us.
• All our personal efforts cannot match those that are needed to meet this challenge. Those who are the greatest polluters must be stopped. They cannot avoid the cost of correction by threatening us with the collapse of the economy.
• The collapse of any economy built on the monopoly capitalist/imperialist model to serve only the aim of maximizing profit,will collapse of its own sins eventually. We do not have to continue to suffer its sins; we must design the solution and plan the future.
• Let us act, whether we write, sing, dance, perform, picket, or march, to reach:
• the market
• to pressure legislators for laws to protect the environment rather than their favorite financiers and business cronies
• to demand that government enforce the laws to protect the environment from rapacious capital
• the audience
• the people whose interest is in saving the environment now for future generations
• the opinion-makers in the media and academia

• The message is that it is already too late to solve this problem by modifying lifestyles and private consumption.

Whew!