As explained in previous tips, we can combine the critics’ and the advocates’ perspectives on readability formulas by thinking of the role of a readability formula as a diagnostic tool. It’s like an X-ray that helps you assess your “patient”—your information.

Then, just as with effective patient care, it’s important to take a holistic approach to diagnosis and treatment by considering the results of the readability formula as just one piece of information, not the only consideration. As one expert puts it, “The variables used in the readability formulas show us the skeleton of a text. It is up to us to flesh out that skeleton with tone, content, organization, coherence, and design.”

Don’t rely solely on readability formulas

Consider the results of a readability formula as just one of many inputs into the writing process. Combine the results with everything else you know about your target audience and then further enhance readability by applying plain language writing techniques by asking yourself:

• Is the information organized logically from the target audience’s perspective?
• Does it provide only relevant information for the target audience (i.e., information the target audience needs to know, information is focused on the target audience not the sponsoring organization or writer)?
• Is the information concrete from the target audience’s perspective?
• Is the tone and language appropriate for the target audience?
• Is it engaging and in the active voice as much as possible?
• Is it concise with short sentences, short words, and no unnecessary words?
• Is it direct, including redundant phrases and repetition only if they add clarity?
• Does it use idioms, abbreviations, and acronyms selectively based on appropriateness for target audience?
• Is structure consistent throughout the headings and body text?
• Is all the information accurate?
• Overall, is the writing appropriate for the medium (i.e., hard copy versus Web)?
• Does the layout follow clear design techniques?

Read up with these resources

• For Written Information, Are Readability Formulas a Quick Fix?
• The gap between patient reading comprehension and the readability of patient education materials, PubMed.gov
• Readability assessment of internet-based consumer health information, PubMed.gov
• Limitations of Readability Formulas, George R.Klare, ByronBuck
• The Principles of Readability, William H. DuBay
• Know your readers, Plain Language at Work newsletter

Use readability formulas as just one tool in your readability-enhancing bag of tricks.

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Previous tips covered “how” to develop plain language guidelines and “what” to include. Now building on what to include, it’s important to recognize that even if your target audience is high literacy, you still need to tailor your writing and in turn, your guidelines. Just like low-literacy audiences have special needs that should influence your writing and guidelines, likewise, high-literacy audiences also have special needs that should influence your writing and guidelines.

What is “plain” for your audience?

We’ve said it before in past tips, but it’s worth saying again and again (and again)—plain language writing is relevant for audiences of all literacy levels. This is because plain language writing isn’t about ruling out certain words or only using shorter or simpler words. It’s about increasing reading ease and understanding by tailoring your writing to match the characteristics of your target audience. Put another way, the ideal is to tailor your writing—and in turn, your guidelines—to match  your target audiences’ special needs whether they are low-literacy or high-literacy audiences, or anywhere in-between. Characteristics like the following:

• Do they access information via hard-copy, online, or both?
• Do they typically use industry-specific language?
• Do they usually use specific technical terms?
• Are they familiar with and receptive to certain idioms, colloquial language, figures of speech, and/or clichés?

Depending on your answers, you will want to include any or all of the above in your writing—and your guidelines. For example, based on the characteristics of your high-literacy audience, you may decide that colloquial language is a “Do” but certain figures of speech are “Don’ts.” You may decide that it’s essential to use industry-specific language but only certain technical terms. And so on.

Bottom line: it’s a judgement call. Remember, “plain language” just means the language that is the best language for your target audience’s specific characteristics. And “best” means the language they find most engaging—the language they find easiest to read, understand, and act on.

How you apply plain language writing techniques—like the words you select—will differ by target audience. Essentially, what is considered plain language for one target audience isn’t necessarily—and probably not—plain language for another. For instance, if your target audience is rocket scientists then the most engaging language is likely highly technical rocket science lingo.   

Time to tailor—even for high-literacy audiences

Here is some more insight to trigger ideas regarding how to customize your writing and your guidelines for high-literacy audiences:

• Plain Language For Everyone, Even Experts
• Writing Digital Copy for Specialists vs. General Audiences
• Use Specialized Language for Specialized Audiences
• Writing Digital Copy for Domain Experts
• Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please: The Case for Plain Language in Business, Government, and Law

Don’t overlook high-literacy audiences—they appreciate plain language writing just as much as low-literacy audiences. Why? Because it makes information quickly engaging so they can easily take from it what they need. And who doesn’t love that?

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People read hard-copy information differently than online information. Very differently. Accordingly, if your target audience accesses your information online, your plain language guidelines need to reflect best practices for web writing, which of course include using plain language writing techniques. This is because, as you know (for sure by now?), plain language is all about enhancing clarity and understanding, which is a big challenge with online information because people tend to scan and skip. To kickstart your efforts to tailor your guidelines to reflect how people access information online, check out these resources:

• How Users Read on the Web
• F-Shaped Pattern of Reading on the Web: Misunderstood, But Still Relevant (Even on Mobile)
• Inverted Pyramid: Writing for Comprehension
• Legibility, Readability, and Comprehension: Making Users Read Your Words
• Website Reading: It (Sometimes) Does Happen
• Breaking grammar rules

…And of course, you can also look for web writing guidelines that also incorporate other aspects of your target audience’s characteristics and the type of information that you are developing for them. For example, although many of this resource’s web writing guidelines are appropriate across topic areas, it focuses on writing for health websites and uses health examples.

So don’t forget to ask yourself how your target audience accesses information. 

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Overall, the point of applying plain language writing techniques—and to developing plain language guidelines—is to make written information easy to read, to understand, and to act on for your target audience. Accordingly, it’s essential to reflect special needs in plain language guidelines. For example, a main characteristic of your target audience that translates into special needs is literacy level.

Special needs require special attention

Fortunately, you can tailor plain language guidelines to meet the needs of people with low literacy, regardless of why they have low literacy; like perhaps they have an intellectual disability, acquired brain injury, dementia, or they are Deaf or cognitively affected by environmental issues.

In addition, certain age groups—think young children and seniors—typically have a variety of physical and cognitive issues that are important to consider in your guidelines. And of course, another important characteristic is how will your target audience access your information. Are they hard-copy types, web peeps, or both?

Resources to help tailoring decisions

Browse these resources (and more; you know what to do, it’s search time!), to see if anything jumps out in relation to your organization’s or client’s target group and their special needs.

Low literacy

• Reading and Navigational Strategies of Web Users with Lower Literacy Skills – The conclusion section summaries the results regarding readers with medium to high literacy
• Lower-Literacy Users: Writing for a Broad Consumer Audience
• Digital Divide: The 3 Stages

 People with dementia

• Writing dementia friendly information
• Creating websites for people with dementia
• Tips for organisations wanting to consult people with dementia about written documents

 Seniors

• Communicating with older people – writing in plain English
• Working with Low-Literacy Seniors: Practical Strategies for Health Providers
• Good Medicine for Seniors: Guidelines for Plain Language and Good Design in Prescription Medication
• Senior Citizens (Ages 65 and older) on the Web
• Seniors as Web Users
• Ginny Redish & Associates Inc. – Publication list re: Older Adults

Web visitors

• For advice regarding plain language guidelines for online information, check out Tip #101.

Address special needs in your plain language guidelines, and in turn, address clarity issues (and remember, high-literacy target audiences also have special needs).

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Where we last left off with Tip #98,  where you were well on your way to figuring out the “how”—how to ensure clarity. The answer: establishing plain language guidelines. Now as promised, keep reading for some resources to help you tackle the “what”—what to include.

Regarding what to include and even deeper, what to include for overall editorial guidelines versus plain language guidelines, the answer is: it depends. It depends on (as is always the case with plain language), your organization’s or client’s target audience and the type of information they are accessing. Start by combing through the following  plain language style guides and deciding which aspects are appropriate for your organization’s or client’s target audience—and which aren’t appropriate.

• Oxford Guide to Plain English by Marin Cutts: in our humble opinion, this guide is the plain language version of The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White (see Tip #98 for background) in that it’s that good! It covers all the main plain language writing techniques—and more. As the book cover describes, it includes “21 essential guidelines to help you express yourself more clearly.”
• Letting Go of the Words by Janice (Ginny) Redish: In more of our humble opinion, this guide is like the web version of The Elements of Style combined with The Oxford Guide to Plain English. A totally excellent resource for applying plain language writing techniques to web writing.

And for more ideas of what to include, look to government and not-for-profit sources. Many organizations and clients prefer to cite information that they feel has no risk of bias. And of course, there are many more examples out there thanks to Mighty Google.

• Canada: Public Works and Government Services Canada, Government of Canada, and Clear Writing – Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food & Rural Affairs, and provincial style guides like this mini one: British Columbia Plain Language Guide.
• United Kingdom: Writing for GOV.UK has several plain language guidelines.
• United States: just google “United States Federal plain language writing guidelines” and a variety of examples will pop up as various U.S. government and not-for-profit organizations have established plain language guidelines, mainly inspired by the Plain Writing Language Act of 2010. For example, the official guidelines for the Plain Writing Act of 2010.

Make plain language central to your guidelines (that’s our vote anyway) and the more tailored to your target audience, the better.

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Before establishing plain language guidelines—or while you establish them—it’s important to also have overall editorial style guide. Why? An editorial style guide makes sure that everyone in your organization or your client’s organization is on the same page; literally on the same page in that everyone is using a consistent approach to word selection and punctuation.

Writers especially look to their organization’s or client’s editorial style guide for direction regarding language selection when there is no definitively right or wrong answer. This is helpful because although there are established English grammar rules, the rules don’t cover everything involved in the written word. As a result, writers make decisions regarding what approach to take—what style to use—based on editorial style guides.

Most traditional editorial style guides typically include recommendations related to the fundamentals of grammar and punctuation. For example, standards regarding how to use apostrophes, colons, and commas, as well as formatting conventions like the use of bold, spacing, and headings.

The mother (or father) of all editorial style guides

If you are of a “certain age” (like at least 30), think back to your school days, you may recall your English teacher mentioning the classic editorial style guide, The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White. Although American and although first published in 1920, writers worldwide continue to rely on this style guide. In fact, in 2011, Time named it one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923.

Style guides like The Elements of Style make the consistency-clarity connection because ensuring consistency boosts clarity. In fact, consistency boosts a lot more—it is also a  brand and customer service booster. Consistency makes your organization or client look like they have their act together. They have invested the time and energy to make sure their information is clear so it’s customer-friendly, not hard to understand or act on, but the opposite; easy to follow and follow-through on.

Pulling it all together  

As touched on in Tip #71, to develop an in-hosue style guide or adapt a well-known established style guide—as a starting point, assess a variety of well-respected style guides. Be sure to pick one that is appropriate for your organization’s or client’s target audience and the type of information they will be accessing. For example, in addition to the following off-the-shelf style guides, there are style guides specifically for websites, academic publications, legal documents, and other specialized information.

Examples of Canadian style guides:

• The Canadian Style
• Editing Canadian English
• The Canadian Press Stylebook

 Examples of British style guides:

• The Oxford Style Manual
• BBC News Styleguide
• The Guardian and Observer Style Guide

Examples of American style guides:

• Associated Press Stylebook
• Chicago Manual of Style
• Purdue University Online Writing Lab
• Gregg Reference Manual
• Garner’s Modern American Usage

Next, decide which specific guidelines to include. No worries, Tip #98 will help.

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An essential part of any business case for plain language is a discussion of literacy. This discussion helps your organization and clients understand the impact of literacy issues on their target audiences. And in turn, understand what their target audiences’ plain language needs are. In fact, knowing literacy levels is one of the best factors influencing the ability to develop targeted information.

Time to get googling about literacy for your specific geographic location and your specific target audience. But first, to get you started, here is a bit of refresher and some regional literacy statistics.

FYI…

In developed countries, there is agreement that it is important to define a “desired level” of competence for coping with the increasing skill demands of the emerging knowledge and information economy. For instance, the “desired level” or what the literacy world refers to as Level 3 performance “is generally chosen as a minimum benchmark because in developed countries, performance above Level 2 is generally associated with a number of positive outcomes.”

“Individuals at proficiency levels 1 and 2 typically have not yet mastered the minimum foundation of literacy needed to attain higher levels of performance.”  Whereas level 3 is “The minimum skills level suitable for coping with the demands of everyday life and work in a complex, advanced society. It denotes roughly the skill level required for successful secondary school completion and college entry. Like higher levels, it requires the ability to integrate several sources of information and solve more complex problems.”

Accordingly, in today’s developed countries, to cope with the demands of life and work, we need to aim for literacy skills at about Level 3 or higher. However, this snapshot of how we’re doing worldwide reveals that a significant portion of people struggle with literacy issues; important insight to consider regarding how your organization or clients develop information.

• Canada: “The 1994 International Adult Literacy Survey showed that close to half of the Canadian adult population aged 16 and over, performed below Level 3 on the prose and literacy scale, the “desired level” of competence for coping with the increasing skill demands of the emerging knowledge and information economy (OECD and Statistics Canada, 1995).” Results from the next large-scale survey, the 2003 International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey (IALSS), did not show any marked improvement in the overall literacy performance of Canadian adults since 1994. Results from the IALSS revealed that “nationally, 48 percent of the adult population – 12 million Canadians aged 16 and over – perform below Level 3 on the prose and document literacy scales (about 9 million or 42 percent of Canadians aged 16 to 65).” Approximately 72 per cent of these Canadians below Level 3 are employed. Most recently, the first results released in 2013 of the Survey of Adult Skills indicate that “Canada ranks at the OECD average in literacy and interestingly, shows a larger proportion of its population at both the highest and lowest levels of literacy.”
• United States: “Low1 “basic” skills (literacy and numeracy) are more common in the United States than on average across countries. One in six adults have low literacy skills…” For instance, “2 out of 10 adults in the United States are unlikely to find the name of a particular congressperson within a summary information sheet that lists the congressional district, the name of the district’s representative, and the representative’s date and place of birth” and “3 out of 10 adults in the United States are likely to have difficulty sorting through e-mails and organizing them into .” (2011-2012)
• United Kingdom: “One in six people in the UK struggle with literacy. This means their literacy is below the level expected of an eleven year old” (2002 -2003) The Survey of Adult Literacy in 2011 -2012 found that “England’s performance in literacy was not significantly different from the OECD average. There were eight countries that significantly outperformed England and eight countries that performed significantly below England.” Interestingly, the survey also found that “Compared with other participating countries, there was a relatively large difference between the score points of the lowest scoring adults and the highest scoring adults, reflecting less even skill distribution across the population compared with many other countries.”
• Ireland: “17.9% or about 1 in 6, Irish adults are at or below level 1 on a five level literacy scale. Ireland ranks 15th out of 24 participating countries. At this level a person may be unable to understand basic written information” (2011-2012).
• Australia: Approximately 3.7% of Australians aged 15 to 74 years had literacy skills at Below Level 1, with 10% at Level 1, and 30% at Level 2 (2011-2012)…
• Italy and Spain: Approximately 70% of adults in Italy and Spain only score level 2 or lower on the literacy assessment (2011-2012).
• Italy, Cyprus, Spain, Austria, Czech Republic, Ireland, Korea: “Across all participating countries, about one in three adults (33.3%) scores at Level 2 in literacy. The largest proportion of adults scoring at this level are found in Italy (42.0%), Cyprus (33.0%) and Spain (39.1%), although Austria (37.2%), the Czech Republic (37.5%), Ireland (37.6%) and Korea (37.0%) also show large shares of adults at this level.” (20011-2012) “Adults performing at Level 2 can undertake tasks that require the respondent to make matches between the text, either digital or printed, and information, and may require paraphrasing or low-level inferences.” This is below the desired Level 3 or higher: “Adults performing at Level 3 can understand and respond appropriately to dense or lengthy texts, and can identify, interpret, or evaluate one or more pieces of information and make appropriate inferences using knowledge text structures and rhetorical devices.

Get your googler going! 

Browse our “living list” of literacy information, and of course be sure to revisit Tips #80 – 82. And there’s a lot more out there, for example:

• 1994 International Adult Literacy Study (IALS)
• 2003: The Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALL)
• Survey of Adult Skills – 3rd international survey underway now – 2013
• 2013 international survey of adult competencies – U.S. still lags in adult literacy

Make sure literacy is part of your push for plain language—it makes the case for you.

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To develop a solid business case for plain language—one that conveys the financial savings due to  plain language—you need not look further than this resource: Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please, The Case for Plain Language in Business, Government, and Law by Professor Joe Kimble.

It summarizes over 50 case studies that provide the facts and figures regarding the value of plain language. And the cases cover a range of industry sectors so you can select the most relevant examples of how organizations or clients—just like yours—reap the benefits the of plain language.

Give your business case the wow factor  by adding real-life case studies that illustrate how plain language saves time, money, and even lives. For inspiration, check out the Tip #35 and Tip #36.

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First, decide what plain language means to you. Next, you can use your preferred definition—or adapt it—to recommend how your organization or clients can bring clarity to their written information. Of course, we recommend that your go-to definition is this one that we developed over the years:

“Plain language writing and editing is a development process that is tailored to your target audience to make your written information easy to read and to understand. It does this by using a range of writing, editing, and presentation techniques to make the best match between the characteristics of your target audience and your written information. As a result, it ensures that the language, structure, and presentation all work together so that your target audience can read, understand, and act on your information—after just one read. Each target audience is different so in turn, what is plain language for each audience also differs.”

Mix and match

By reviewing a range of definitions, you can take from each any aspects that would work best for your organization or client. Most organizations like to cite definitions they feel have no risk of bias. As a result, your organization or client may be receptive to the ones below—or aspects f these definitions—offered by government and not-for-profit organizations.

• The Office of the Ministry of Multiculturalism and Citizenship of Canada (now the Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship Canada): from Plain Language: Clear and Simple “Plain language writing is a technique of organizing information in ways that make sense to the reader. It uses straightforward, concrete, familiar words. You can use these techniques to adapt what you have to say to the reading abilities of the people who are likely to read your document. Using plain language to explain concepts and procedures involves using examples that relate to your reader’s experience…”
• Plain Language Action and Information Network:“Plain language (also called Plain English) is communication your audience can understand the first time they read or hear it. Language that is plain to one set of readers may not be plain to others. Written material is in plain language if your audience can: Find what they need; understand what they find; and use what they find to meet their needs.”
• Clarity International:“We recommend the following definition of plain language: A communication is in plain language if it meets the needs of its audience—by using language, structure, and design so clearly and effectively that the audience has the best possible chance of readily finding what they need, understanding it, and using it.”
• PLAIN (Plain Language Association International) and the International Plain Language Federation: “A communication is in plain language if its wording, structure, and design are so clear that the intended audience can easily find what they need, understand what they find, and use that information.”
• Center for Plain Language: “A communication is in plain language if its wording, structure, and design are so clear that the intended readers can easily find what they need, understand what they find, and use that information.”
• Plain Language.gov: the official guidelines for the Plain Writing Act of 2010, define plain language as helping readers: “find what they need, understand what they find, and use what they find to meet their needs.
• Plain Train: “Plain language is an approach to communication that begins with the needs of the reader. When you use plain language: What you write is determined by your purpose for writing. How you write is determined by your audience’s reasons for reading and their reading skills. Plain language matches the needs of the reader with your needs as a writer, resulting in effective and efficient communication. It is effective because the reader can understand the message. It is efficient because the reader can read and understand the message the first time.”

Seems ironic that plain language has so many different definitions, however, the essence is consistent—a focus on ease of reading and enhanced understanding. Points for clarity there!

Get the plain language ball rolling for your organization or clients by clarifying what plain language is.  

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Who could forget last year’s attempt to banish forever more the “sorry, not sorry” phenomenon or the use of “bae”? (…can’t bear to describe here, so you’ll have to look them up if you somehow dodged a bullet and have not been inundated with this lingo).

Then in 2016, hopeful candidates for banishment included to stop using “ideate” especially by all those “influencers” who apparently are “disrupting” everything. Both influencer and disrupt were on many kick-to-the-curb lists.

So for 2018, let’s go straight to Australia and the Plain English Foundation that is well-known for their worst words lists. As the foundation describes, “Each year, we uncover examples of appalling public language, from political doublespeak and marketing jargon to bad business buzzwords. We compile the biggest offenders in our December list.”

And the winner is (read: loser is)…

“Political doublespeak dominated our 2017 list as things became seriously Orwellian in the US. At the top of the heap was the worrying ‘alternative facts’, suggesting that politicians can be right even when they’re wrong. Plain English Foundation has voted alternative facts as the worst word or phrase of 2017. ‘With Donald Trump dominating international politics, 2017 saw some of the world’s worst ever political spin,’ said Dr. Neil James, Executive Director of Plain English Foundation. ‘In a post-truth era, our politicians can apparently give alternative facts and be instinctively correct, regardless of reality,” Dr. James said. “Yet a fact cannot have an alternative that is also a fact.’

Check out the full list and make this year’s resolution to never have this kind of ickiness infect your written word (ideally, not your spoken word either). 

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