Building Rapport

If you are homeless in Vancouver and you want to live in public housing, there is a paper wall to keep you out:

• The basic application form is 13 pages long.
• The additional form required of those who have been homeless is 9 pages long.
• And then you must complete a form for each individual housing project that you might live in.
• Supplemental forms like an application for a copy of a birth certificate.

Picture a destitute family about to lose their housing. Someone in the family must be calm and collected and literate enough to fill out 2 of the forms above. The 2nd form must be completed for each of the housing projects they might qualify for.

Picture a destitute person who has been sleeping under a bridge for month or years. She must complete all three sets of forms–while she is anxious, hungry, and weary.

You see the wall there?

Have you heard of situational limited literacy? That’s when the context or the circumstances are so stressful or overwhelming that whatever literacy skills you have had in the past, they are not available to you in the present moment.

Since so few people get over that wall, a local group has formed for the purpose of documenting the homeless in their neighborhood and completing the application forms.

I have not seen these forms so I can’t tell you whether they are in plain language but I would say the odds are against it.

So-named because they are examples of zealous over-editing, whiz deletions happen when the editor strikes out the relative pronouns which and that.

Dominique Joseph has commented on these elsewhere:

As a Francophone and a translator, I can confirm that keeping the “whiz” words in makes the text clearer and easier to understand. When “whiz” words are deleted, it can be tricky to figure out the underlying structure of the sentence and the relationships between words or ideas.

1. From “Rules for writing plain English”, by Bill Lutz (http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/Resources/lutz.htm#anchor)

Bill Lutz says we should avoid “whiz deleletions”, which he explains as follows:

Subordinate clauses are often introduced by such words as “which is,” “who was,” “that are,” etc. Deleting these words (the relative pronoun and linking verb) is known as “whiz-deletion.” For example:

1.The supervisor wants the report which was written by the Purchasing Office.
With a whiz-deletion we get:

2.The supervisor wants the report written by the Purchasing Office.
The whiz-deletion makes sentence 2 ambiguous. Does the supervisor want the Purchasing Office to write the report, or does she want the report that the Purchasing Office has already written? Generally, it’s a good idea to avoid whiz-deletions.

(source: http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/Resources/lutz.htm#anchor)

2. From “Revisiting Plain Language”, by Beth Mazur (http://www.plainlanguage.gov/whatisPL/history/mazur.cfm)

One such guideline is the suggestion to “avoid whiz deletions.” A whiz deletion is the absence of introductory text for subordinate clauses. The Guidelines offer the comparison between the sentence “The director wants the report which was written by the Home Office.” and “The director wants the report written by the Home Office” (Felker and others 1981, pp. 39-40). This guideline was based on direct research done by Charrow and Charrow (1978). In their extensive study of jury instructions, these authors found that whiz deletions made jury instructions harder to understand (Felker and others 1981).

The last defence of the nervous lawyer is “the judge won’t like it.” Guess what she will like plain language.

Joe Kimble and others conducted studies in Michigan, Florida, and Louisiana more than twenty years ago. Robert W. Benson and Joan B. Kessler conducted another study in Los Angeles, California. The results indicate that the participants found the Legalese passage to be less persuasive than the Plain English version. The respondents also believed the Plain English author was more believable, well-educated, and worked for a prestigious law firm. All of these studies compared only sentences or paragraphs and included both lawyers and judges.

A new study compared actual pleading documents, surveyed only judges, and asked directly and only about persuasiveness. Of 800 judges mailed the survey, 292 responded. This survey was conducted by Sean Flammer, a trial attorney at a Texas litigation firm. He had previously clerked for a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

The study has been reported in the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute and has become available online:

PERSUADING JUDGES: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF WRITING STYLE, PERSUASION, AND THE USE OF PLAIN ENGLISH
Sean Flammer
The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute [Vol. 16] 212
also: http://www.journallegalwritinginstitute.org/archives/2010/183.pdf

Flammer survey shows:

The results are clear: judges prefer Plain English to Legalese. Whether a judge is an appellate or trial judge or a federal or state judge plays no role in whether the judge prefers Plain English. Nor does the judge‘s gender, age, years of judicial experience, or years of experience in the legal profession. Whether a judge‘s district is rural or urban plays no role, either. Judges—by a two-thirds margin—find Plain English more persuasive than Legalese. Thus, it is in the litigator‘s interest to submit pleadings in Plain English.

Flammer worked with 3 samples drawn from an actual court pleading:

1. a 3-page excerpt from the original pleading
2. a plain language revision, following the advise of experts in legal writing
3. an “informal” version taking plain language plainer, using contractions and colloquialisms

Each judge saw either #1 and #2 or #1 and #3. A majority of judges preferred 2 or 3 over the legalese of #1.

Flammer reports:
The judge‘s age, number of years spent in the judiciary, number of years spent in the legal profession, and gender had no correlation with whether the judge preferred Plain English or Legalese. Further, whether the trial judge was from a rural or urban district did not matter.

Some judges elaborated on their preference with these remarks about the the Plain English sample:

• more persuasive because of the succinctness of the argument.
• easier to understand, more clear and straightforward, and therefore, more persuasive.
• simpler, more direct prose. Getting to the point trumps pontificating any day.
• easy reading. It goes directly to the point.

Judges appreciated:

• brevity
• use of lists
• deletion of the opening paragraph‘s gobbledygook language

These judges found the Plain English sample to be ―cleaner, leaner, and more effective and understandable.

The bad news for legalese writers is that they won’t be read carefully:

The convoluted style led me to skimming for its essence. This was not the only judge who stated that the writing style in the Legalese sample inspired him to pay little attention to the document‘s logical intricacies. These comments make clear that an indirect and convoluted writing style is likely to make the document go unread. An unread document cannot be persuasive.

The minority of judges who preferred legalese, liked that it was
―more polished
―formal
―easier to read

What about the “cranky” judges (my soulmates)? They said that the two plain language versions did not go far enough. Those writings were

• too wordy
• poor writing
• too verbose and filled with formal legalese
• not punchy enough
• capable of being made more succinct

The data show that judges—as a group—would much rather have an attorney err on the side of informality than err on the side of being too stilted and formal. One judge made a fair criticism of this Plain English sample in that it was not plain enough and was too wordy. Another said, “Short and direct is almost always more persuasive.”

More evidence is in, judges are sold on plain language, so why not be brave and use it.

Read my books, Plain Language Legal Writing and Plain Language in Plain English, both available with free U.S. shipping this summer at Plain Language Wizardry.

I want to hear from you: tell me what is right or wrong with this advertisement. This not a test. I am interested to hear from people with differing perspectives or focuses.

HST ad in daily newspaper

Well, lucky for me that Seth Godin blogged about writing this week and gave me my inspiration. Here is his full post:

Sort of, just and Donald Trump

I noticed a little while ago that I was using the word “just” and the phrase “sort of” in my writing. All the time, in fact. In my last book, a search and replace removed more than 80 unnecessary ‘justs’.

Just say it.

Don’t hide behind waffling terms that don’t mean anything.

On the other hand, as I passed the skating rink in New York with the Donald’s name plastered all over it, I’m reminded of a new trend I’m seeing more of, which is the act of declaring whatever you’re working on ‘the best ever,’ ‘the best in the world,’ etc.

Saying it doesn’t make it so. In fact, it probably makes it unso.

Take the advice and cut out those extra words. Not just the waffling words but the insistent words like “very” as in “It was a very long time since he had called”.

In fact, you should be able to go through your writing and cut it by at least 10%. When I edit the work of wordy professionals like lawyers, bureaucrats, and academics, I set myself a goal of reducing the word count by 30%.

Plain language techniques can help you get the message through efficiently and effectively. It takes effort but it’s worth it.

Poorly written documents contribute to inefficiencies, management problems, higher administrative costs, and poor public relations. Clear communication gives you a positive image as efficient, responsive, and friendly. Isn’t that how you want your clients to see you?

Improving your writing saves both time and money. Think of the time spent writing and editing. And the time wasted correcting misunderstandings. Imagine the gains to be achieved by making your written material more efficient and effective.

One of my clients prized brevity above all and insisted that all staff memos be limited to one page. But sometimes clarity requires more text or more space, and clarity is what we are really after.

A few weeks ago, Kenneth W. Davis put it this way:

Be economical

Plain language, and any good writing, is all about knowing your audience and meeting their needs. So this comment is helpful confirmation that we all appreciate brevity and suffer from information overload–even the billionaires:

At Seth’s Blog

How to write for a billionaire