Plain Language
Anyone who has ever taken a good look at a government contract, employment agreement or municipal code, knows that it often helps to have a law degree and a PhD to interpret the document. Sometimes it seems as if we are using as many words as possible to get our meaning across, and that’s before the document goes to the attorneys.
Lost Opportunity
Documents that are difficult to read and understand do a disservice to those reading them and end up causing trouble for the government employees who create them. I have sat through many city council and planning commission meetings where protests were raised purely because hard-to-understand documents were misinterpreted. It is not unusual for companies bidding on government projects to bid incorrectly solely due to misunderstanding the language in bidding documents. We will never know what potentially great employees didn’t apply for a job because of overly complicated job descriptions.
A Great Example of Plain Language
So how do we overcome typical government language and speak in plain language? A great example of this is the Tumblr Terms of Service. Tumblr is a website for bloggers, and to open an account you need to agree to the terms of service. While the terms of service contain all of the legalese of a typical agreement, the agreement is interspersed with “plain English” summaries.
In the “Modification to Terms of Service” section, they took a four paragraph, 267-word section, and distilled it down to “As Tumblr grows and improves, we might have to make changes to these Terms of Service. When we do, we'll let you know. We're also going to make it a practice to post old versions so it's easy to see changes/additions/deletions. To see old versions, scroll down to the end of this document.”
Another great example is the “Limitations on Automated Use” section, which is a fairly technical section. The plain English summary is “Don't do bad things to Tumblr or to other users. Some particularly egregious examples of "bad things" are listed in this section.”
Tumblr provides both the formal, legal language and the plain English summary. While this might seem like twice the work, for government employees, it could actually help employees transition to easier to understand language, while still providing legal protection.
Helpful Resources
This is not a new fight. In 1979 the Plain English Campaign was started in the United Kingdom and claims to have rewritten 22,000 documents. In the United States, PlainLanguage.gov was launched in 1994 to improve communication from the federal government to the public. The site includes “Tips and Tools” and training resources such as “Starting a Plain-Language Program” and “Planning a Plain-Language Website.” Their Plain English at a glance is a quick guide to writing better.
Transitioning to plain language will help people understand what you are trying to communicate, increase employee efficiency and lead to better government. If you know of good examples of plain language used in government documents, please share them by including a link in our comments section.
