|
Ivan |
Ron, what
is plain language? |
|
Ron |
 I
think of plain language as the Goldilocks Factor in well-written text.
Readers find it not too hard to read, not too easy either, but "just
right."
Recommended Reading -
Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better
English in Plain English, Second Edition
Getting that effect means imagining
yourself as actual people reading what you're writing and then using
language and structure that tells them what they want to know in a
way that's easy for them to understand. Your readers, finally, are
the best judge of what's "plain" to them. |
|
Ivan |
Why do
clients need plain language expertise - what are the tell-tale signs
that should warn someone that their copy needs plain language
treatment? |
|
Ron |
To judge
whether a client needs plain language, you would look for any sign
of communication failure in feedback from their
clients (customers, users, etc.).
Feedback will show up at points of
customer contact -- customer service, sales, market research with
focus groups. It will show up in sales data, rates of customer
retention, and so on. It will show up as a cost. |
|
Evidence
will often be hidden because people don't think to look at lack of
plain language as a potential factor. But if you send out a blanket
notice and the call center volume suddenly skyrockets with unwanted
calls from confused customers, there's a clue that maybe there was
something wrong with the way the notice was written. |
|
Ivan |
What has
contributed to the writing styles that undermine good English, for
example IT jargon and marketese? |
|
Ron |
I believe
you have to speak a language that people understand. Depending on
your readers, that will vary. There's not one style of plain
language but many. Jargon is a kind of shorthand, and for the people
who know it, it's clear. There's no problem until you try to use
that shorthand to write for readers outside the community that
understands it. I think you can make a similar argument regarding
marketese, legalese, and all the other -eses. They have their uses. |
|
 I
should add that this kind of relativity is not widely embraced by
plain language practitioners. There's an understandable impulse to
hold to a "standard" of plain language which is the same everywhere
and always.
I Love It When You Talk Retro: Hoochie Coochie,
Double Whammy, Drop a Dime, and the Forgotten Origins of American
Speech
Departures from that standard are
perceived as undermining English. But there are differences among
readers. Your first job is to understand your particular audience
and use the kind of English that makes the most sense to them. That
may mean letting go of an idea of "good English." |
|
Ivan |
When
speaking with prospective clients, how do you explain the value that
plain language will make to their publications? A colleague recently
mentioned that he avoided the term "plain language" as clients
thought it was a dumbed-down version of English. |
|
Ron |
Well, I
think this is a perfect example of the need to understand your
audience first. I've encountered this bias, as well, and I avoid
using the term if I think it will be misunderstood.
When a prospective client seems
comfortable with "plain language," I position it as added value. But
I focus on the clients' objectives and do the best I can to
understand their business strategy and their customers. You can't
really solve a problem for someone until you fully understand it as
they do. |
|
I think
most clients appreciate the value of plain language. They lack the
budget or the leverage within their organization to give it a high
priority. Commercial clients expect it to pay for itself in the
short-term, and they want a cost analysis that will reflect the
anticipated payback. Without a crystal ball, making predictions like
this is a difficult task. |
|
Ivan |
The US
President, George W. Bush, has been praised for his ability to use
plain language techniques to argue his point. Have you seen an
increase in public figures following this line? |
|
Ron |
My first
impulse is to sidestep this question. For one thing, it's about the
spoken word, which is comprehended in a different way from the
written word. And in the case of a president, the primary medium of
communication is TV, which chiefly takes the form of the sound bite. |
|
An
analysis of President Bush's speech would probably reveal an attempt
to speak "plainly," although it would also reveal ambiguities in
that plain talk resulting from the strategy of persuasion underlying
it.
But before drawing any conclusions
about that, you'd need to take into account the man's manner,
appearance, behavior, tone of voice, regional accent, facial
expressions, and body language. The plain talk is a small part of
that whole package -- as it has been with most of our media-savvy
presidents, including Reagan and Clinton. |
|
This may
come across as a blatantly biased opinion, but what I have noticed
over the last 10-15 years, as politics in the U.S. has grown
progressively bipartisan, is not more plain language but an
escalation of political rhetoric. If politicians speak more plainly,
it hardly matters, since they are not all that dependable as sources
of information. |
|
Ivan |
On the
Internet, what sites impress you with their use of clear writing and
good English? |
|
Ron |
I also
have the impulse to sidestep this question. You never know when a
site you like will be taken down and replaced by something else, so
for future readers, I could praise something that no longer exists. |
|
I guess
I'd point readers to one of the online newspapers, such as
washingtonpost.com and nytimes.com.
In spite of the recent troubles at
the New York Times, I have a lot of respect for journalists, their
discipline, and their ability to make complex information readable.
But I realize I'm hedging. These are really online versions of print
publications. |
|
So I'll
play a couple of personal favorites here. I've always liked the
online prose style of Nick Usborne, who has a book I wish I'd
written on Web writing called Net Words and a website,
www.nickusborne.com.
He said once that the trick of
online writing is to write like you talk. I would modify that by
saying it's the ability to seem like you're talking, which is
somewhat different. At any rate, he can do it. |
|
Another
Web writer I've admired is Mark Hurst at
www.goodexperience.com. He
may not have invented the term "customer experience," but he has
done a good job of getting the word out about communicating
effectively with customers. He has a consulting firm based in New
York called Creative Good, and he continues to be a voice of
clarity, reason, and accountability. |
|
Ivan |
What
advice would you share with web writers (and those moving web-wards)
to sharpen their online writing? |
|
Ron |
Well,
besides what I've said already about speaking a language that your
readers understand, I'm inclined to point out the human factors of
reading from a screen, which in nearly every respect compares
unfavorably with the printed page. |
|
Resolution of letter forms is so much poorer on screen, the
illumination of the screen tires the eyes, and sitting at a monitor
or with a laptop has yet to equal the comfort and flexibility of
sprawling out on the couch, reading on a bus, over lunch, in the
checkout line, or at the beach. Also, absorbing the loosely linked
content of a website is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle
without a picture to go by. |
|
Anything
you can do to make any of this easier for the reader will make you a
hero. Say it in half the words and shorten the time it takes to
read. Break up the copy with short paragraphs, headings and
subheadings for easier scanning and skimming. Rely less on words,
and use visuals, graphs, charts to illustrate the text. |
|
Know how
your copy will fit into the architecture of the site and anticipate
the various navigational routes readers may take to find what you've
written. Then make it easy for them to judge whether it's what
they're looking for and to find it again if they need to.
Recommended -
Clean, Well-Lighted Sentences: A Guide to
Avoiding the Most Common Errors in Grammar and Punctuation
Finally, as a last resort, make it
readable as a printout. |
I'm Ivan Walsh, the person behind this site. I help people improve how they write, publish and extend their business assets.