This week is New Zealand's unofficial plain language week. On Thursday we'll celebrate the winners of the Writemark Plain English Awards, 2014. Top prize is for promoting clear communication throughout an entire organisation. That's not an easy job. Elsewhere, gobbledygook from government agencies continues to gush. The wells of snake oil never run dry.
Blog: Content writing and content strategy insights
Posts tagged "plain English"
Classic manual on plain language: Complete Plain Words by Ernest Gowers
The Complete Plain Words is the UK equivalent of The Elements of Style. It is the biggest-ever bestseller from Her Majesty's Stationery Office, and has never been out of print since 1954.
The first edition in 1948 was a radical call to clarity from a top civil servant. Anything written by Sir Ernest Gowers, formerly Private Secretary to Lloyd George, had the ring of authority.
Readability tests: a tactful way to help bad writers
Raising the topic of readability can be a delicate business. Is your boss out of touch with customers? Is a distinguished expert sending unreadable articles to a newsletter you edit? Is a colleague converting your plain English to gobbledegook?
Simplicity of language is testable — how about clarity?
To make written web content accessible, it should ideally be as clear and simple as possible. One word, plain as in plain language, means both clear and simple. But what we often forget is that these are two entirely different qualities.
Why the WCAG 2.0 reading level criterion is doomed
There's a major problem with the international web accessibility guideline designed to ensure that web content is as clear and simple as possible.