This is a transcript of one of the videos in the plain language training course Writing well at work. There are references to slides and visual material that are only available by viewing the video.
You can access the full web based course at writertraining.online.
Information about face to face courses is at thinkwrite.com.au
Making it easy for readers is hard work
We’ve mentioned it before, but making it easy for your readers does take a whole lot of effort. It does require hard work on your part so that your reader doesn’t have to work so hard.
Sort out the muddle before you write
Let me read this quote as there’s so many words on the screen.
If something is well written, the reader will be able to give their whole attention to what the writer is saying. But they won’t be able to if it is badly written because some of their attention will be taken up with sorting out the middle. A good writer sorts out their own muddles. They consider their readers, and they remember that they’re giving their attention, and so they’re careful not to waste any of it.
Now I apologise for the sexist language in that original quote, but the idea is really helpful. The idea that good writers will sort out their own muddle before they push it onto the reader. They’ll make sure that things are crystal clear. They won’t have in their minds something like, oh, my reader, can probably figure this out. They’ll be fine. No, you won’t do that. You’ll sort out the muddle before it goes on to your reader. And I really like the idea in that last sentence too. The idea that when somebody is reading your work, they’re investing some of their personal time or professional time in having a conversation with you. Don’t waste any of that. Treat that as something really precious.
Write using plain language (or plain English)
Now to write in that way, we ought to write in a style that’s being called plain language. Sometimes it’s called plain English.
Plain language, of course, is far more than just the words and sentences we use, as we’ve seen as we’ve gone through this course. It is all about a mindset of serving the reader.
But the definition of plain language is something like this. It’s about organising and presenting information so that it makes sense to your audience and it’s easy for them to read. Clearly, you need to know your audience well to be able to do that, which is why we’ve spent a bit of time thinking about audience during this course.
I like this thought from Canada. They’re saying here that plain language is a relative term. Your document is plain when your audience understands it. So when they’re saying it’s a relative term, it means that what you write for your colleagues might be different to what you write for the public. A different audience, so you might write in a different way.
Plain language means readers can easily find, understand, and use your content.
But your content will be plain if your audience, whoever they are, can find what they need, understand what they find, and then use it to meet their needs.
Here’s a useful idea from a law firm. They’re saying that they’ve got a rule of thumb that if the meaning doesn’t present itself to us in the first reading of a clause, something must be wrong. That is, I should be able to extract meaning the first time I read something. I shouldn’t need to have to search and work hard to extract meaning.
Plain language has been described as like looking through a shop window. When you’re looking through a shop window, you’re looking at the goods behind the glass. You’re not being bothered by the glass, it’s transparent to you. Likewise, when you are reading something that has been written plainly, you’ll be interacting with the ideas. The language won’t bother you, it will be transparent.
Writing in plain language is vital for people working in government
Now here I have some content from the Tasmanian government’s website. I’m not going to read through all this page, but I do want to highlight a few paragraphs.
They start off by saying that as a government they have a duty to clearly communicate with people and so they will write with proper grammar and use plain language and use a consistent style.
This next sentence is really quite insightful. It says traditionally, good readers blamed a document if they couldn’t understand it, while poor readers blamed themselves. That is true. If you’re doing this course, you’re likely a good reader. If you find a document where things haven’t been expressed well, that you’re struggling to understand, you are more likely to blame the writer. You’ll be saying things like that writer hasn’t done their job very well. They haven’t put those sentences together in a sensible way. It’s not easy for people to understand. A poor reader won’t. They are more likely to blame themselves. They’ll be saying things like, I’ve never been able to extract meaning from written words. I had trouble at school. I’m still having trouble now. They will blame themselves.
They go on to say that some people try and justify writing in a complicated way for various reasons. I don’t think there is any reason.
They pick up on the idea that we’ve covered in a previous unit, the idea that it’s now the writers responsibility to make themselves clear rather than the readers’ duty to understand.
And they talk about what plain language is. And in particular, they say it is not a special or reduced version of the language. This is not dumbing down. I get pretty annoyed when I hear that phrase because it sort of suggests that you are writing to idiots. And so we need to dumb it down. Well, look, most of the time, you’re not writing to idiots. You’re writing to people of average, maybe even above average intelligence. They just might not have all the experiences that you have. Nor are we writing baby talk. We’re not writing ‘the cat sat on the mat’ or that sort of thing.
Writing in plain language – a matter of social justice
They go on to say that in their role as a government, they need to make sure that they don’t confuse readers or hide information in some way. Because if that happens, some people may end up doing the wrong thing. They may break the law, or maybe they won’t do the right thing or what’s expected of them. Or perhaps they’ll miss out on an entitlement they could otherwise have had. And that is true. Some people may end up doing the wrong thing, even breaking the law, not because they wanted to, but just because they didn’t understand the documents that we produced for them.
And that seems to me to be a really sad outcome. We can introduce or exacerbate social disadvantage just by the way we choose to word things, just by the language we choose to use. So I think this is a really important idea that all documents going from government need to be in plain language so that readers can read and understand and act on them. But it’s more than just government. I think any document in the public sphere needs to be written plainly. And I’ve got in mind documents coming out of banks and insurance companies and telcos. All those types of organisations need to write plainly so that we can all understand what they’re talking about and interact with the products and services that they provide.
They also talk about on this web page how it’s important to make sure that we are complete and accurate. But really what we’re trying to do is communicate. To get the message across. And we came across that idea in a previous unit.
The benefits of writing in plain language
Plain language does get your message across in the shortest time possible. It is much faster to write something plainly, and it is much, much faster to read something that’s been written plainly.
It is true that more people will be able to understand your message. If you write in an academic style, only the academically able will be able to understand. If you write in a plain style, lots of people will be able to understand. And you won’t disadvantage the academically able. They will still be fine.
It is true that there is less chance of misunderstanding and less chance of rework and correcting things, and we’ve already talked about it being socially responsible.
Then they give a whole list here of things they like to keep in mind when you’re writing plainly. I won’t go through that list there, but I will note that the first thing on their list is to know your audience.
It would be worthwhile having a look at that web page in more detail. And I’ve provided the link to that page in this unit.
5 plain language writing techniques for all documents
In the next few minutes, I’m going to be talking about some plain language or plain English writing techniques.
I’ve got 5 there that I’m going to cover. These and not the definitive 5. I’ve read books that say there’s 27 things we need to keep in mind. Perhaps so, but I reckon if we get these five, if we master these five, we’re well on the way to writing in a style that makes it easy for most people to understand.
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