For two years, I worked as a college writing center tutor while enrolled in a graduate professional writing program. Over those two years, I studied, practiced, and helped others with clear writing. While the papers I read every day in the writing center ranged from argumentative essays, persuasive essays, and research papers, to more creative, narrative essays, they all had one thing in common: they were written for a target audiience—a professor. And from assignment conception to finished product, plain language played a significant role.
Guest blog
6 Plain English principles for writing perfect Web content
Sometimes, being precise and straight to the point is the best way to be when it comes to writing. Nowadays, our screens and content, both on and offline, are dominated by written words. In a world where attention spans can sometimes surprisingly surpass a few seconds if you’re writing web content, you need to grab your reader, and fast.
Financial Literacy Month – The role of plain language in explaining financial concepts
For something that is so vitally important to all of us, money matters can be awfully hard to understand. Talk about stocks, inflation and other financial matters can seem like another language even if it’s all written in English. In order to empower people to take more control over their personal finances, implementing Plain Language in both private and public sector communications is essential.
April is “Financial Literacy Month.” Financial decisions – such as applying for a credit card, choosing a small business loan, or switching banks – cannot be made lightly.
What is readability and why should content editors care about it?
Blog image ReadabilityAll of our organizations are shifting toward digital communication. They’re reducing face-to-face contact, calls and printed material.
Why? An obvious reason is that digital reduces cost. For some government services, the average cost of a digital transaction is 5 percent of the cost of a telephone transaction, 3 percent of the cost of a postal transaction, and 2 percent of the cost of a face-to-face transaction.
Plain Language as an Equity Issue
Why do I provide Plain Language work? As an educator, I value plain language as an equity issue for adults with low reading skills. Here is a snapshot of the problem in the United States
Don’t blame your readers for not understanding
Another holiday season has passed, along with the requisite schmoozing at parties. I tend to be more of a listener than a talker. But if I’m asked, I do admit that I’m an editor and a proponent of plain language.
If most of the people you’re trying to communicate with aren’t responding in the way you intended, there’s a good chance that the problem is YOU.