Blog

In 2006, I was working as a writer-editor in the regulatory shop of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency responsible for providing legal immigration benefits and services. Any one of our regulations could affect thousands to millions of people, many of whom didn’t speak English as a first language ...
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2020 was an unusual and challenging year in the history of the ClearMarks. Everyone’s focus was on creating new plain language materials to meet pressing needs—and, in turn, to celebrate those materials and their important impact on their audiences - we opened a separate COVID-19 category ...
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The Plain Writing Act is turning 10 years old on October 13, 2020. The Act gave U.S. federal employees the legal oomph to turn the stereotype that government writing is overly complicated, stilted, and obtuse on its head. No longer was plain language just a good idea that could easily ...
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ClearMark judge Geraldine Hynes, PhD, is a communication consultant and executive coach for business, government, and nonprofit organizations. Her award-winning research has been published in scholarly journals and books in several countries and languages ...
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Don’t miss the Access for All conference October event! This conference marks the first time Clarity International, the Center for Plain Language, and Plain Language Association International (PLAIN) have joined together to celebrate clear communication. It is the first virtual plain language conference. Come join us as we discuss how ...
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Together with our partners, Clarity and Plain International, we are hosting the Access for All: Plain Language is a Civil Right International Conference virtual event October 13-15, 2020. We will announce the winners of our ClearMark Awards during this event. Access for All: Plain Language is a Civil Right, is ...
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We are pleased to announce our newest Board member, Kathryn Catania. Kathryn is a champion of providing information that is easy to find, understand, and use. She has more than 15 years’ experience promoting plain language in government writing ...
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Recently, the Center’s Vice Chair, David Lipscomb, talked with two Center volunteers who also happen to be successful entrepreneurs-- Casey Mank and Grace Foster. They are the two founders of Bold Type, a writing consulting firm that is prospering in its second year. Armed with masters degrees, experience leading workshops ...
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