How to make writing easier to read for everyone
March 31, 2022 7:18 PM Subscribe
Plain Language - an animated guide. "...the way we write often creates barriers to who can read it. Plain language—a style of writing that uses simplified sentences, everyday vocabulary, and clear structure—aims to remove those barriers."
This is FABULOUS.
I especially loved this pair of complex vs simple:
complex:
I tend to get wordy in my own writing. This article inspires me to try harder to write more simply.
And now that I've finished reading to the bottom and discovered the team behind this:
Of course it's The Pudding. They create so much of the very best, most enlightening and informative stuff on the internet.
This is just great. Thank you so much for posting it, storybored!
posted by kristi at 9:17 PM on March 31, 2022 [4 favorites]
I especially loved this pair of complex vs simple:
complex:
But proprietary tech like Lexile has some of the most disconcerting aspects of both worlds. As flawed as Flesch-Kincaid or Dale-Chall, but opaque and unexplainable. The main benefit of the F-K and D-C formulas (and other simple algorithms like Gunning-Fog and SMOG) is their transparency. A broken system locked in a black box can't even offer this.plain:
At least we know how Flesch-Kincaid and Dale-Chall work. They are not perfect but we can explain them. We don’t even know what Lexile measures.I also really love how clearly this illustrates, yet again, how measures taken to improve access for people with disabilities can greatly improve things for everyone.
I tend to get wordy in my own writing. This article inspires me to try harder to write more simply.
And now that I've finished reading to the bottom and discovered the team behind this:
Of course it's The Pudding. They create so much of the very best, most enlightening and informative stuff on the internet.
This is just great. Thank you so much for posting it, storybored!
posted by kristi at 9:17 PM on March 31, 2022 [4 favorites]
'First they came...'.
I am shaking my head at this. While I strongly agree that the written form needs to be structured in a manner understood by its target audience, it is truly important to NOT have some homogenized and soulless prose which lacks identity and emotion. So I strongly disagree with the idea that this is 'great' or 'much needed'... whatever.
A simple recall of some of your favorite works of literature will demonstrate this. The emotion and spirit of many of the greatest works would be removed.
Plain language does have a place in written works. For example, 'How your refrigerator works' or 'Putting together your piece of furniture' or any form of instructional literature. Imagine either of these written by [insert famous author here] and you see my point. Imagine a Good Eats recipe by Shakespeare....
“Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.”
Please let none of this be so. Except in a description of how to assemble some Ikea furniture!
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 10:15 PM on March 31, 2022 [21 favorites]
I am shaking my head at this. While I strongly agree that the written form needs to be structured in a manner understood by its target audience, it is truly important to NOT have some homogenized and soulless prose which lacks identity and emotion. So I strongly disagree with the idea that this is 'great' or 'much needed'... whatever.
A simple recall of some of your favorite works of literature will demonstrate this. The emotion and spirit of many of the greatest works would be removed.
Plain language does have a place in written works. For example, 'How your refrigerator works' or 'Putting together your piece of furniture' or any form of instructional literature. Imagine either of these written by [insert famous author here] and you see my point. Imagine a Good Eats recipe by Shakespeare....
“Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.”
Please let none of this be so. Except in a description of how to assemble some Ikea furniture!
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 10:15 PM on March 31, 2022 [21 favorites]
Academic prose and non-fiction would also profit from simplicity IMHO.
posted by kmt at 10:21 PM on March 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by kmt at 10:21 PM on March 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
A simple recall of some of your favorite works of literature will demonstrate this. The emotion and spirit of many of the greatest works would be removed.
I can't see anyone suggesting that all of literature should be like this. But I don't think plain writing should be limited to instruction manuals either. It seems to be a great way to make information more accessible to more people and enable these people to join the discourse. That's important, because these are often people who have a high personal stake in the discourse and might otherwise be excluded. Plain lanuage isn't just about instruction manuals, it's about participation and politics.
posted by sohalt at 10:49 PM on March 31, 2022 [18 favorites]
I can't see anyone suggesting that all of literature should be like this. But I don't think plain writing should be limited to instruction manuals either. It seems to be a great way to make information more accessible to more people and enable these people to join the discourse. That's important, because these are often people who have a high personal stake in the discourse and might otherwise be excluded. Plain lanuage isn't just about instruction manuals, it's about participation and politics.
posted by sohalt at 10:49 PM on March 31, 2022 [18 favorites]
And being understood.
posted by kristi at 10:50 PM on March 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by kristi at 10:50 PM on March 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
There seems to be a common trade-off between accessibility and experiential enjoyment by the abled, whether we're discussing treehouses or prose. Surmountable challenges are fun, after all! I prefer hiking rough paths to paved, but no one would suggest we complicate the hospital path, nor dispose of Shakespeare. Still, I have the impression that modern accessibility standards contribute to blander architecture.
The problem is in striking the right balance in society in determining which features of society ought be made more accessible, what non essential extras can be safely ignored, and which the cost benefit could be better spent on other pursuits.
In regards to language, creating a better standard for pain language, and applying it to common legal agreements (waivers, agreements, consents, terms of service, government service explanations) might be a good place to start. The question is: how far do we extend its reach?
posted by grokus at 10:57 PM on March 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
The problem is in striking the right balance in society in determining which features of society ought be made more accessible, what non essential extras can be safely ignored, and which the cost benefit could be better spent on other pursuits.
In regards to language, creating a better standard for pain language, and applying it to common legal agreements (waivers, agreements, consents, terms of service, government service explanations) might be a good place to start. The question is: how far do we extend its reach?
posted by grokus at 10:57 PM on March 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
And being understood and promoting your readers' trust that you yourself actually understand what you're writing about. A weak grasp of the subject can be hidden behind complicated writing, because trying to parse it makes the reader too exhausted to check whether you're actually making all that much sense.
I wish my students would stick to more rules of plain writing. Not just because they would lose fewer points for grammatical errors (their skills can be somewhat shaky, when it comes to pulling off a more complicated syntax). But if they wrote more plainly, I would find it lot easier to trust that they actually understood the source material I wanted them to summarize.
posted by sohalt at 10:57 PM on March 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
I wish my students would stick to more rules of plain writing. Not just because they would lose fewer points for grammatical errors (their skills can be somewhat shaky, when it comes to pulling off a more complicated syntax). But if they wrote more plainly, I would find it lot easier to trust that they actually understood the source material I wanted them to summarize.
posted by sohalt at 10:57 PM on March 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
Academic prose and non-fiction would also profit from simplicity IMHO.
also artist's statements, though I suspect most of them would simply disappear altogether.
posted by philip-random at 11:02 PM on March 31, 2022 [17 favorites]
also artist's statements, though I suspect most of them would simply disappear altogether.
posted by philip-random at 11:02 PM on March 31, 2022 [17 favorites]
it is truly important to NOT have some homogenized and soulless prose which lacks identity and emotion. So I strongly disagree with the idea that this is 'great' or 'much needed'... whatever.
It is great. And it is much needed. In Canada, where I live, nearly half the population struggles with understanding complex text. The bar for what’s considered complex is surprisingly low.
Yet the world requires almost all of us to grapple with quite a lot of complex text, every day, in order to function—and not just to put IKEA furniture together. People need to understand medication instructions; safety manuals/warning labels; legal contracts; banking info; government forms. If you’re highly literate, it’s easy to miss the ways these pieces of writing can be confusing to someone with a lower literacy level. Often the most marginalized people have the biggest literacy struggles, which just marginalizes them further.
You are correct that writing needs to be understood by its intended audience. The audience for the text of daily life includes a lot of people who struggle with comprehending it. It is a social justice issue to make sure that people who need information can understand that information.
Finally, your argument about literature is a straw man. Listen, I did an English lit degree and I teach it at the college level. I love literature and I read a lot of it. But no one is talking about applying principles of plain language to literature. That’s not what it’s for. It is for improving the readability of the kind of text people need to understand in order to function in society. It is a social justice issue.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:02 AM on April 1, 2022 [37 favorites]
It is great. And it is much needed. In Canada, where I live, nearly half the population struggles with understanding complex text. The bar for what’s considered complex is surprisingly low.
Yet the world requires almost all of us to grapple with quite a lot of complex text, every day, in order to function—and not just to put IKEA furniture together. People need to understand medication instructions; safety manuals/warning labels; legal contracts; banking info; government forms. If you’re highly literate, it’s easy to miss the ways these pieces of writing can be confusing to someone with a lower literacy level. Often the most marginalized people have the biggest literacy struggles, which just marginalizes them further.
You are correct that writing needs to be understood by its intended audience. The audience for the text of daily life includes a lot of people who struggle with comprehending it. It is a social justice issue to make sure that people who need information can understand that information.
Finally, your argument about literature is a straw man. Listen, I did an English lit degree and I teach it at the college level. I love literature and I read a lot of it. But no one is talking about applying principles of plain language to literature. That’s not what it’s for. It is for improving the readability of the kind of text people need to understand in order to function in society. It is a social justice issue.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:02 AM on April 1, 2022 [37 favorites]
And furthermore. It is not just people with low literacy who struggle with some of the texts of everyday life. A lot of the stuff we read is just mind bogglingly confusing. I have two degrees and I frequently come across instructions or forms where I’m like “WTF am I supposed to do here?” I once was sent home after surgery with post-surgical care instructions that my partner and I—with four degrees between us!—could not make heads or tails of. I was reviewing a proposed settlement with a lawyer the other day and he had no idea what one of the paragraphs meant (it had been written by another lawyer). He had to ask the other lawyer for clarification. That is bad writing! It’s frustrating and annoying and UNNECESSARY. A lot of complicated text is complicated because it is written with no care or concern for the audience. Or, in some cases, it’s written to be intentionally obscure. Have you looked at most terms and conditions? This is unacceptable.
This talk by Sandra Fisher-Martins, The Right to Understand, explains it really well. It was one of the assigned videos in my plain language course and I still remember it very clearly.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:12 AM on April 1, 2022 [18 favorites]
This talk by Sandra Fisher-Martins, The Right to Understand, explains it really well. It was one of the assigned videos in my plain language course and I still remember it very clearly.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:12 AM on April 1, 2022 [18 favorites]
I'm of two minds about this as well. Obviously keeping different levels of ability in mind is a good thing, but a general dumbing down is not. So much depends on context of use. What would be helpful is running writing through a mental filter first and seeing how much it can be simplified while still keeping all necessary and desired meanings. I disagree that it would necessarily improve politics, however. Studies show the grade level of presidential debates has dropped substantially but I don't think understanding has increased. One example I am finding personally where clearer expression does help is in comparing a modern more readable translation of the Bible such as NLT vs. the standard older ones. It's kind of the literary equivalent of restoring old paintings and seeing brighter colours, clearer details, etc. Even there, though, it comes at the tradeoff of some grandness of language, thought, beauty.
posted by blue shadows at 12:32 AM on April 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by blue shadows at 12:32 AM on April 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
Another issue if half the general population has difficulties with reading conprehension is to question the educational system. Of course the instructional type material is often ridiculous and I don't mean that.
posted by blue shadows at 12:39 AM on April 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by blue shadows at 12:39 AM on April 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
Why is IKEA being mentioned a lot here? Their instructions are almost entirely illustrated and text free!
posted by bifurcated at 1:04 AM on April 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
posted by bifurcated at 1:04 AM on April 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
I'm generally in support of this, especially concerning what the linked article talks about. So perhaps just as an aside, there often seems to be the assumption that a complicated text usually involves lengthy convoluted sentences, and simplifying makes it shorter and therefore easier to understand. This is not necessary the case. Instead, to simplify you often have to explain more, since you can't rely on people's prior knowledge about the things you're talking about. And a longer text which goes to all sorts of digressions in order to explain the background is not necessarily easier to understand just because it's written in a more simple prose.
Bruno Latour writes in one of his books: "Under the name of a "Copernican Revolution" Kant invented this science-fiction nightmare: the outside world now turns around the mind-in-the-vat, which dictates most of that world's laws, laws it has extracted from itself without help from anyone else. A crippled despot now ruled the world of reality."
What does this mean for anyone who doesn't know anything about Kant? To explain what it means would probably take pages.
Anyway, I support clearer prose, as long as one keeps the target audience in mind.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:47 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Bruno Latour writes in one of his books: "Under the name of a "Copernican Revolution" Kant invented this science-fiction nightmare: the outside world now turns around the mind-in-the-vat, which dictates most of that world's laws, laws it has extracted from itself without help from anyone else. A crippled despot now ruled the world of reality."
What does this mean for anyone who doesn't know anything about Kant? To explain what it means would probably take pages.
Anyway, I support clearer prose, as long as one keeps the target audience in mind.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:47 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think it is a good idea to try writing simply. Write a draft then revise it with simpler language. Then decide if you want to keep some of the more complicated language. Some difficult language might be worth keeping because it's more beautiful or does a better job of saying what you want to say. But sometimes the simpler version turns out better or more beautiful than the original.
posted by straight at 1:48 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by straight at 1:48 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Globish "Communicate in English, using only 1500 words" deserves a wave in this thread. MetaPrevs.
At my last academic place of work, a major part of the corporate strategy was to attract non-EU students and their f€€$. I ran their Mission Statement, Core Values and Strategic Themes through the Globish scanner to see what might confuse a kid from the PRC.
learner-centred experience that engages
proactively seek creative collaborations
transparency and stewardship of resources
optimise the learner experience
peer-review and quality enhancement culture
ensuring access and progression opportunities
But these docs clearly needed more than a vocabulary check to be fit for the supposed purpose.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:50 AM on April 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
At my last academic place of work, a major part of the corporate strategy was to attract non-EU students and their f€€$. I ran their Mission Statement, Core Values and Strategic Themes through the Globish scanner to see what might confuse a kid from the PRC.
learner-centred experience that engages
proactively seek creative collaborations
transparency and stewardship of resources
optimise the learner experience
peer-review and quality enhancement culture
ensuring access and progression opportunities
But these docs clearly needed more than a vocabulary check to be fit for the supposed purpose.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:50 AM on April 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Also, I like the following passage from Pierre Bourdieu, because it is so meta, being both a perfect example of a convoluted sentence structure, and also arguing for why it in fact should be so. (This is just for fun, not a direct comment on the topic.)
"The style of the book, whose long, complex sentences may offend - constructed as they are with a view to reconstituting the complexity of the social world in a language capable of holding together the most diverse things while setting them in rigorous perspective - stems partly from the endeavour to mobilize all the resources of the traditional modes of expression, literary, philosophical or scientific, so as to say things that were de facto or de jure excluded from them, and to prevent the reading from slipping back into the simplicities of the smart essay or the political polemic."
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:59 AM on April 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
"The style of the book, whose long, complex sentences may offend - constructed as they are with a view to reconstituting the complexity of the social world in a language capable of holding together the most diverse things while setting them in rigorous perspective - stems partly from the endeavour to mobilize all the resources of the traditional modes of expression, literary, philosophical or scientific, so as to say things that were de facto or de jure excluded from them, and to prevent the reading from slipping back into the simplicities of the smart essay or the political polemic."
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:59 AM on April 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
People often believe that writing simply is ‘dumbing down’. This is odd because explaining a complex topic in straightforward language is usually harder than writing in complicated sentences or using jargon. The payoff from these extra efforts is worthwhile. It means that your readers can understand your ideas.
Written text can be art. But, communicating effectively in writing is not about creating art. It is about crafting text so that your message is understood.
posted by plonkee at 2:51 AM on April 1, 2022 [20 favorites]
Written text can be art. But, communicating effectively in writing is not about creating art. It is about crafting text so that your message is understood.
posted by plonkee at 2:51 AM on April 1, 2022 [20 favorites]
One of the major issues society is facing is the lowering of education standards. People are not being educated to a level which allows them to develop critical thinking and learning skills. At the same time our senses are being bombarded by an array of 'pretty shiny things' which are distractions from the task at hand. Just think of the primary function of a lot of web sites and why you visit them. Then compare them to Meta. Purpose and function. Those of you who use browser tools like NoScript will invariably be aware of the excessive loading of background 'tools' which are of little or no benefit to you the 'reader' being able to gather the information you need while visiting the specific site. As a result a large percentage of people now live in a state of distraction and over-complexity.
While a picture may say a thousand words, words presented in context are far more relevant. The major problem would be the Interwebs would not be able to sell you things or harvest information from you. Writing has not become more difficult or complex, humankind is less skilled in understanding it.
A token mention of Ikea instructions here :-)
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 3:46 AM on April 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
While a picture may say a thousand words, words presented in context are far more relevant. The major problem would be the Interwebs would not be able to sell you things or harvest information from you. Writing has not become more difficult or complex, humankind is less skilled in understanding it.
A token mention of Ikea instructions here :-)
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 3:46 AM on April 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
Back when I started as a programmer, there was a tongue in cheek dismissal of the use of comments in code, "it was difficult to write, it should be difficult to read".
But the citing of IKEA instruction leaflets here is hilarious. They are a masterpiece of clarity, though they do assume some cultural familiarity with self assembly techniques, the problem is that people won't read and follow them step by step. The problem is not IKEA instructions, the problem is that some people are rather stupid and impatient.
posted by epo at 3:56 AM on April 1, 2022
But the citing of IKEA instruction leaflets here is hilarious. They are a masterpiece of clarity, though they do assume some cultural familiarity with self assembly techniques, the problem is that people won't read and follow them step by step. The problem is not IKEA instructions, the problem is that some people are rather stupid and impatient.
posted by epo at 3:56 AM on April 1, 2022
Writing has not become more difficult or complex, humankind is less skilled in understanding it.
My impression is that reading comprehension has always been a bit of a problem across the board, it was just less remarkable because we expected fewer people to have any of it in the first place.
Those people all these plain-language efforts are now aimed at - I don't think they used to be better at handling complicated language before, I just think we cared about them even less back then.
posted by sohalt at 4:36 AM on April 1, 2022 [12 favorites]
My impression is that reading comprehension has always been a bit of a problem across the board, it was just less remarkable because we expected fewer people to have any of it in the first place.
Those people all these plain-language efforts are now aimed at - I don't think they used to be better at handling complicated language before, I just think we cared about them even less back then.
posted by sohalt at 4:36 AM on April 1, 2022 [12 favorites]
I’m in favor of this from an accessibility angle, and find a lot of value in plain writing. However, in kristi’s quoted passage the ‘plain’ version actually contains less *information*. The prolix version tells us that these are algorithms and mentions other such algorithms. One could argue that this isn’t important information, or is presented elsewhere, but out of context I don’t think I agree that it’s a great example. The biggest challenge to me is writing plainly while conveying the same amount of actual information as writing ‘academically.’
posted by aspersioncast at 4:57 AM on April 1, 2022 [19 favorites]
posted by aspersioncast at 4:57 AM on April 1, 2022 [19 favorites]
All this presupposes good faith on the part of the writer. Much of the most impenetrable prose is impenetrable by design.
posted by BWA at 4:58 AM on April 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by BWA at 4:58 AM on April 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm glad to learn this is an "official thing" that I can study further. I always thought of this as a sort of international business writing. Easy to translate, easy to understand, less likely to be misunderstood and require additional time explaining, especially when you are losing a day due to time differences on every email exchange.
While I would not want to pick up an adult novel to find it was written in the style of "Hop on Pop," writing simply has been invaluable in business communication for me.
posted by jellywerker at 5:13 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
While I would not want to pick up an adult novel to find it was written in the style of "Hop on Pop," writing simply has been invaluable in business communication for me.
posted by jellywerker at 5:13 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
But the citing of IKEA instruction leaflets here is hilarious. They are a masterpiece of clarity, though they do assume some cultural familiarity with self assembly techniques, the problem is that people won't read and follow them step by step. The problem is not IKEA instructions, the problem is that some people are rather stupid and impatient
I guess I'm stupid and impatient then, because I have frequently found IKEA instructions pretty rubbish, and I DO read through the whole thing first and then follow step by step. Their diagrams trying to show you putting Thing-very-similar-to-other-provided- things into one of about 8 holes which are almost, but not quite, identical on each side of the board is not good conveyance. I would find them clearer if they also had words. And numbers on the parts.
I am a big fan of simple writing, although I am also a fan of big words - and I don't think they're necessarily mutually exclusive. I've been asked to proofread various things in my life, and my suggestions were mostly cutting out half the words.
posted by stillnocturnal at 5:41 AM on April 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
I guess I'm stupid and impatient then, because I have frequently found IKEA instructions pretty rubbish, and I DO read through the whole thing first and then follow step by step. Their diagrams trying to show you putting Thing-very-similar-to-other-provided- things into one of about 8 holes which are almost, but not quite, identical on each side of the board is not good conveyance. I would find them clearer if they also had words. And numbers on the parts.
I am a big fan of simple writing, although I am also a fan of big words - and I don't think they're necessarily mutually exclusive. I've been asked to proofread various things in my life, and my suggestions were mostly cutting out half the words.
posted by stillnocturnal at 5:41 AM on April 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
I do find it ironic that their passage in plain language containing:
"Writers will censor writing for these groups. To censor something means to take out information the writer thinks is not appropriate."
Literally excises a bunch of information from the complex version to simplify it.
I'm all for simplifying language and making it easier to understand. I'm not in favour of using that as a cover for 'simplifying' content, which feels patronising and insulting.
The 'translator' might not think a lot of the mentioned stats are important. The original author clearly did. It is very possible to mention them without the original's convoluted sentence structures.
posted by Dysk at 5:43 AM on April 1, 2022 [10 favorites]
"Writers will censor writing for these groups. To censor something means to take out information the writer thinks is not appropriate."
Literally excises a bunch of information from the complex version to simplify it.
I'm all for simplifying language and making it easier to understand. I'm not in favour of using that as a cover for 'simplifying' content, which feels patronising and insulting.
The 'translator' might not think a lot of the mentioned stats are important. The original author clearly did. It is very possible to mention them without the original's convoluted sentence structures.
posted by Dysk at 5:43 AM on April 1, 2022 [10 favorites]
Plain lanuage isn't just about instruction manuals, it's about participation and politics.
George Orwell pointed out way back in 1946 that politicians deliberately use dense, vague, obfuscatory language to obscure things they know people won't approve of.
posted by Gelatin at 6:47 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
George Orwell pointed out way back in 1946 that politicians deliberately use dense, vague, obfuscatory language to obscure things they know people won't approve of.
posted by Gelatin at 6:47 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I am not naturally good at plain language writing, and my job -- analyzing complicated policy issues for an audience of highly educated civil servants -- doesn't really require that I write simply. I would like to get better at it, though, because I recognize my tendency to write in a very complicated way.
When I write decision memos (complicated, detailed, 25 pages is about the minimum length, and they can be hundreds of pages) we have them sent out for translation into French. But we also have to submit a one page summary of each decision memo, it must be in both official languages and it has to be submitted too quickly to have it professionally translated, so I write them in both English and French. I used to write summaries in English and translate them into French, but even with the assistance of Google Translate, Termium, Tradooit, etc, my French is very basic, so what I usually do now is write them in French first and then translate them into English. The end result is a lot like these examples of plain language.
I found myself nitpicking my way through this, though, especially when I switched it from complex to plain language one paragraph at a time. The colour-coded example, in particular, I found annoying, because I felt the plain language version dropped details and connections between things.
In the complex version, you learn that Kyra was born not just a little early, but tremendously early. You do have to know something about premature birth to interpret 27 weeks as scantly after the point of survivability and nowhere near full term, but then why isn't that explained in the plain language version? There is a huge difference between born early at 37 weeks or 27 weeks and that detail is lost.
And then you get a list of things that Kyra has difficulty with, but the plain language doesn't connect that to the premature birth. It's just a series of disconnected sentences containing facts about her. Asking plain language readers to make their own connections between facts when those connections are explicitly made in the complex version is not making things easier.
Buried at the end of the article in the Authors' notes (why?) are three links to more resources on how to actually write in plain language. I plan to check them out, would love it if Mefites shared any other how-to links they know of here.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:54 AM on April 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
When I write decision memos (complicated, detailed, 25 pages is about the minimum length, and they can be hundreds of pages) we have them sent out for translation into French. But we also have to submit a one page summary of each decision memo, it must be in both official languages and it has to be submitted too quickly to have it professionally translated, so I write them in both English and French. I used to write summaries in English and translate them into French, but even with the assistance of Google Translate, Termium, Tradooit, etc, my French is very basic, so what I usually do now is write them in French first and then translate them into English. The end result is a lot like these examples of plain language.
I found myself nitpicking my way through this, though, especially when I switched it from complex to plain language one paragraph at a time. The colour-coded example, in particular, I found annoying, because I felt the plain language version dropped details and connections between things.
In the complex version, you learn that Kyra was born not just a little early, but tremendously early. You do have to know something about premature birth to interpret 27 weeks as scantly after the point of survivability and nowhere near full term, but then why isn't that explained in the plain language version? There is a huge difference between born early at 37 weeks or 27 weeks and that detail is lost.
And then you get a list of things that Kyra has difficulty with, but the plain language doesn't connect that to the premature birth. It's just a series of disconnected sentences containing facts about her. Asking plain language readers to make their own connections between facts when those connections are explicitly made in the complex version is not making things easier.
Buried at the end of the article in the Authors' notes (why?) are three links to more resources on how to actually write in plain language. I plan to check them out, would love it if Mefites shared any other how-to links they know of here.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:54 AM on April 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
can we pause and acknowledge that (most likely) the majority of frequent commenters in the MeFi space are a little more in love with the written (English) word than the average human? I mean, why else do we keep showing up here to type our thoughts in this white box, and voraciously read others' contributions.
taking a step back, I cannot imagine how it's not a good idea to make more written communication more accessible. from product information to institutional stuff, you name it, there is a good chance it was not created with optimal accessibility in mind. and I think we're agreed that making language more clear, when it matters, does not mean our precious literature etc will be dumbed down.
the history of gatekeeping in English is a thing
posted by elkevelvet at 7:30 AM on April 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
taking a step back, I cannot imagine how it's not a good idea to make more written communication more accessible. from product information to institutional stuff, you name it, there is a good chance it was not created with optimal accessibility in mind. and I think we're agreed that making language more clear, when it matters, does not mean our precious literature etc will be dumbed down.
the history of gatekeeping in English is a thing
posted by elkevelvet at 7:30 AM on April 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
I LOVE to see the bullet points in the "plain language" versions. Why?
posted by travertina at 7:50 AM on April 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
- lists break up a long block of text, telling the reader "this will be easier to read"
- bullets gives the reader more space to consider and absorb each point
- the structure helps the writer organize their intentions better
- enforcing more structure and making edits easier so the author won't do something like this here last bullet. All above is IMHO of course LOL also I hate unexplained acronyms
posted by travertina at 7:50 AM on April 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
So are they advocating have alternate simple texts available more often, the way TV can be subtitled (or, for that matter, what they've done for part of the article?) Or are they saying the primary text should be written in this style whenever possible?
The first is inarguably good. The second is context dependent. The changes in the article are definitely not content-neutral! They remove information in order to convey what is left more clearly.
There's certainly a lot of jargon that is used primarily to try and obscure the thinness of the underlying content or signal membership in some in-group, and a lot of comments in this thread lean that way. But the translation notes in the article are not of that sort of content.
I LOVE to see the bullet points in the "plain language" versions.
The bullet point version of the Gettysburg address.
posted by mark k at 8:14 AM on April 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
The first is inarguably good. The second is context dependent. The changes in the article are definitely not content-neutral! They remove information in order to convey what is left more clearly.
There's certainly a lot of jargon that is used primarily to try and obscure the thinness of the underlying content or signal membership in some in-group, and a lot of comments in this thread lean that way. But the translation notes in the article are not of that sort of content.
I LOVE to see the bullet points in the "plain language" versions.
The bullet point version of the Gettysburg address.
posted by mark k at 8:14 AM on April 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
Please let none of this be so. Except in a description of how to assemble some Ikea furniture!
First, nobody is suggesting doing anything to literature. Secondly - think bigger than descriptions about how to assemble Ikea furniture. Plain language is important for information that serves a purpose. It's important because it's more effective.
HHS found that only 12% of Americans have proficient health literacy. A very common issue in public health and health care is that too often, information is delivered in dense, inscrutable ways that patients and people can't understand or follow.
The design and content of information affects how well people understand it, and if you're interested in giving people tools to improve their health, if you're interested in making it easier to access government services, to apply for a loan or to a school or to some form of support - than plain language is important.
It's important because erecting pointless, inequitable barriers is bad.
posted by entropone at 8:47 AM on April 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
First, nobody is suggesting doing anything to literature. Secondly - think bigger than descriptions about how to assemble Ikea furniture. Plain language is important for information that serves a purpose. It's important because it's more effective.
HHS found that only 12% of Americans have proficient health literacy. A very common issue in public health and health care is that too often, information is delivered in dense, inscrutable ways that patients and people can't understand or follow.
The design and content of information affects how well people understand it, and if you're interested in giving people tools to improve their health, if you're interested in making it easier to access government services, to apply for a loan or to a school or to some form of support - than plain language is important.
It's important because erecting pointless, inequitable barriers is bad.
posted by entropone at 8:47 AM on April 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
I cannot imagine how it's not a good idea to make more written communication more accessible.
elkevelvet
The thing is, this is a vague general statement everyone likely agrees with, but the problem is figuring out what "accessible", "simple", "plain language", etc. actually means. As aspersioncast and jacquilynne note, a lot of the "plain language" versions in the linked seem to be stripping out information and context.
Take the very first paragraph of the article:
Setting that aside, there doesn't seem to be any method or rationale for the "plain language" transformation. Is "useful" more complex or difficult than "helpful"? The article offers some forms of analyses but they don't really seem to explain the "plain language" transformations in the article itself.
I don't think anyone would argue against the concept of improving readability, but the way this article presents the approach isn't very convincing.
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:15 AM on April 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
elkevelvet
The thing is, this is a vague general statement everyone likely agrees with, but the problem is figuring out what "accessible", "simple", "plain language", etc. actually means. As aspersioncast and jacquilynne note, a lot of the "plain language" versions in the linked seem to be stripping out information and context.
Take the very first paragraph of the article:
Plain language is useful for everyone, but especially for those who are often denied the opportunity to engage with and comment on public writing. This includes the 20% of the population with learning disabilities, a number of the more than 7 million people in the US with intellectual disabilities (ID), readers for whom English is not a first language and people with limited access to education, among others."Plain language" version:
Plain language is helpful for everyone. But it is really good for people who may find other kinds of writing hard to read. That includes:This isn't merely "more accessible" or "simpler", it's more like a vague summary of the original text. "That includes:People with learning disabilities" is not the same as "This includes the 20% of the population with learning disabilities". Why does "plain language" mean removing information and context? Isn't the point to make the content easier to read and understand, not actually removing content?
- People with learning disabilities.
- People with intellectual disabilities (ID).
- People who are learning to speak English.
- People who did not go to school or went to school less than they wanted to.
Setting that aside, there doesn't seem to be any method or rationale for the "plain language" transformation. Is "useful" more complex or difficult than "helpful"? The article offers some forms of analyses but they don't really seem to explain the "plain language" transformations in the article itself.
I don't think anyone would argue against the concept of improving readability, but the way this article presents the approach isn't very convincing.
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:15 AM on April 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
This isn't merely "more accessible" or "simpler", it's more like a vague summary of the original text. "That includes:People with learning disabilities" is not the same as "This includes the 20% of the population with learning disabilities". Why does "plain language" mean removing information and context? Isn't the point to make the content easier to read and understand, not actually removing content?
Some of the resources I have been checking out since I read this post address this issue with the idea that the Easy Read / Plain Language version should not exclude information that's in the original version. They do note that in creating the plain language version you might find that some of the information in the original is not necessary to actually make your point. In that case, you should exclude it from both places. Or if you're only issuing a plain language version, you can not include it.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:40 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Some of the resources I have been checking out since I read this post address this issue with the idea that the Easy Read / Plain Language version should not exclude information that's in the original version. They do note that in creating the plain language version you might find that some of the information in the original is not necessary to actually make your point. In that case, you should exclude it from both places. Or if you're only issuing a plain language version, you can not include it.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:40 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
The thing is, this is a vague general statement everyone likely agrees with, but the problem is figuring out what "accessible", "simple", "plain language", etc. actually means.
This actually isn't much of a problem, since it's easily studied and measured. In my field, there's a gigantic body of evidence that plain language improves the cognition of material, and increases the likelihood that subjects will adopt behavior or achieve task completion.
One of the thing I've learned by working adjacent to this is that "plain language" really isn't just "try to make stuff simpler." The plain language experts I know are professional writers and scientists with decades of experience who systematically pore over material, cross-reference evidence-based strategies, and systematically develop information that works.
There's a ton of overlap in the growing field of UX, too, but rarely do you see people who are like "Who says that making a button easier to find means more people will click on it?"
posted by entropone at 9:45 AM on April 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
This actually isn't much of a problem, since it's easily studied and measured. In my field, there's a gigantic body of evidence that plain language improves the cognition of material, and increases the likelihood that subjects will adopt behavior or achieve task completion.
One of the thing I've learned by working adjacent to this is that "plain language" really isn't just "try to make stuff simpler." The plain language experts I know are professional writers and scientists with decades of experience who systematically pore over material, cross-reference evidence-based strategies, and systematically develop information that works.
There's a ton of overlap in the growing field of UX, too, but rarely do you see people who are like "Who says that making a button easier to find means more people will click on it?"
posted by entropone at 9:45 AM on April 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
HHS found that only 12% of Americans have proficient health literacy. A very common issue in public health and health care is that too often, information is delivered in dense, inscrutable ways that patients and people can't understand or follow.
I have, in the last few years, gotten several handouts from doctors' offices that floored me with how clearly written they were. I don't know if they would count as "plain language" but they were plainer than I'm used to. I sent the office a pleased note.
"Simplify as much as possible, but no more than that"?
posted by clew at 10:00 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I have, in the last few years, gotten several handouts from doctors' offices that floored me with how clearly written they were. I don't know if they would count as "plain language" but they were plainer than I'm used to. I sent the office a pleased note.
"Simplify as much as possible, but no more than that"?
posted by clew at 10:00 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
George Orwell pointed out way back in 1946 that politicians deliberately use dense, vague, obfuscatory language to obscure things they know people won't approve of.
Obfuscatory is a great word to use in a post about plain language.
I think there is a way to write with both clarity and rhetorical power. Read Hemingway, for instance. So much of writing is about knowing your audience and your genre. I am not convinced by the article's examples of "plain language," though, for the reasons that star gentle uterus points out. I did really appreciate that it acknowledges the limitations of using an algorithm as your only measure of readability, though the specific alternate sentences for Easy and Hard feel really cherry-picked. (But it gives us a great line like "The dun fox cleared that slouch of a dog at full tilt.")
posted by basalganglia at 10:11 AM on April 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Obfuscatory is a great word to use in a post about plain language.
I think there is a way to write with both clarity and rhetorical power. Read Hemingway, for instance. So much of writing is about knowing your audience and your genre. I am not convinced by the article's examples of "plain language," though, for the reasons that star gentle uterus points out. I did really appreciate that it acknowledges the limitations of using an algorithm as your only measure of readability, though the specific alternate sentences for Easy and Hard feel really cherry-picked. (But it gives us a great line like "The dun fox cleared that slouch of a dog at full tilt.")
posted by basalganglia at 10:11 AM on April 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Why does "plain language" mean removing information and context?
In that example, does it matter that it's 20% of the population with learning disabilities? Would plain language not help those people if they were 18% or 52% of the population? Why is it important to know the proportion of the population with learning disabilities but not their absolute number, the absolute number of people with intellectual disabilities but not their proportion of the population, and to learn neither about people who use English as a second language or were denied good educational opportunities?
I thought some of the point of that example was that the percentages and numbers aren't core content but are just unnecessary decorations. If you want to reinforce that these are not tiny little groups, a sentence like "There are lots of people like that, so helping them helps a lot of people" does the job.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:42 AM on April 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
In that example, does it matter that it's 20% of the population with learning disabilities? Would plain language not help those people if they were 18% or 52% of the population? Why is it important to know the proportion of the population with learning disabilities but not their absolute number, the absolute number of people with intellectual disabilities but not their proportion of the population, and to learn neither about people who use English as a second language or were denied good educational opportunities?
I thought some of the point of that example was that the percentages and numbers aren't core content but are just unnecessary decorations. If you want to reinforce that these are not tiny little groups, a sentence like "There are lots of people like that, so helping them helps a lot of people" does the job.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:42 AM on April 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
in a parallel universe this thread is surely an elaborate joke for people who work to make written communication clear
the article may not float your boat. I think the way it points to consultation with the intended audience is a basic step that gets missed often, but I'll leave it at that. some people are very committed to certain views on written communications and unsurprisingly we are drawn to this thread like black flies to an exposed neck
posted by elkevelvet at 10:45 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
the article may not float your boat. I think the way it points to consultation with the intended audience is a basic step that gets missed often, but I'll leave it at that. some people are very committed to certain views on written communications and unsurprisingly we are drawn to this thread like black flies to an exposed neck
posted by elkevelvet at 10:45 AM on April 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
One of the thing I've learned by working adjacent to this is that "plain language" really isn't just "try to make stuff simpler."
entropone
That's great, but as demonstrated it's not evident from the article where all of the examples given do seem to just be "try to make stuff simpler." I'm not questioning the very field or the expertise of those in it as your reply seems to think, but am just responding to what's in this article.
In that example, does it matter that it's 20% of the population with learning disabilities?
GCU Sweet and Full of Grace
Yes.
It's not the specific number, but the point of providing those numbers is to demonstrate how widespread and varied the people this could help are. It's very common for unaffected people to dismiss efforts to broaden access to anything, be it language or buildings, with something like "why should we go to all this trouble for just a few people?"
If you want to reinforce that these are not tiny little groups, a sentence like "There are lots of people like that, so helping them helps a lot of people" does the job.
Strongly disagree. That's vague to the point of meaninglessness. Giving information on how big these groups are helps drive the point home. If all this is "unnecessary decorations", why bother listing the example affected groups at all? Just saying it helps people gets that point across, right?
Several commenters so far have said that plain language doesn't mean dumbing down, but as presented in this article it appears to be exactly that, and it's strange to see people advocating for that. It frankly comes across as condescending to those you're claiming to advocate for.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:00 AM on April 1, 2022 [10 favorites]
entropone
That's great, but as demonstrated it's not evident from the article where all of the examples given do seem to just be "try to make stuff simpler." I'm not questioning the very field or the expertise of those in it as your reply seems to think, but am just responding to what's in this article.
In that example, does it matter that it's 20% of the population with learning disabilities?
GCU Sweet and Full of Grace
Yes.
It's not the specific number, but the point of providing those numbers is to demonstrate how widespread and varied the people this could help are. It's very common for unaffected people to dismiss efforts to broaden access to anything, be it language or buildings, with something like "why should we go to all this trouble for just a few people?"
If you want to reinforce that these are not tiny little groups, a sentence like "There are lots of people like that, so helping them helps a lot of people" does the job.
Strongly disagree. That's vague to the point of meaninglessness. Giving information on how big these groups are helps drive the point home. If all this is "unnecessary decorations", why bother listing the example affected groups at all? Just saying it helps people gets that point across, right?
Several commenters so far have said that plain language doesn't mean dumbing down, but as presented in this article it appears to be exactly that, and it's strange to see people advocating for that. It frankly comes across as condescending to those you're claiming to advocate for.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:00 AM on April 1, 2022 [10 favorites]
I think one of the main things that makes writing hard to read is trying to say too many things at once. We include extra information in a clause that's not the main point of the sentence, extra sentences that aren't the main point of the paragraph. It's a difficult problem. To make prose simpler you often have to:
1. Omit less-relevant information (but you might be losing something important).
2. Move the information to a separate sentence or paragraph (making the whole thing longer).
3. Use a footnote or hyperlink and make the reader decide if they want more information (but they might not know what they don't know).
There's a limit to how much you can do with just better writing. Sometimes you have to choose between more difficult prose or one of the options above. Sometimes you have to accept that it's not possible to say everything you want to say and have it read and understood.
posted by straight at 11:34 AM on April 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
1. Omit less-relevant information (but you might be losing something important).
2. Move the information to a separate sentence or paragraph (making the whole thing longer).
3. Use a footnote or hyperlink and make the reader decide if they want more information (but they might not know what they don't know).
There's a limit to how much you can do with just better writing. Sometimes you have to choose between more difficult prose or one of the options above. Sometimes you have to accept that it's not possible to say everything you want to say and have it read and understood.
posted by straight at 11:34 AM on April 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
Several commenters so far have said that plain language doesn't mean dumbing down, but as presented in this article it appears to be exactly that, and it's strange to see people advocating for that. It frankly comes across as condescending to those you're claiming to advocate for.
Hi! I'm someone that would benefit greatly If something like plain language were more standard. I in no way, shape, or form feel condescended by the fact that people recognize that for reasons I, and others, have a hard limit on the amount of reading I can do in a day. In fact, everyone that's speaking in support of plan language, please continue to. Thanks!
However, I AM very insulted by the implications of your statement that simpler writing is "Dumber" than complicated writing. I could explain to you that I am in fact quite capable of reading complex texts, and parsing them, or that I am capable of retaining facts and figures. I'm not going to, because that doesn't really matter. Even if my particular issues were in those areas, I would still deserve basic respect and acknowledgement that my way of being human and gathering and processing information isn't inherently worse than yours.
posted by Gygesringtone at 11:52 AM on April 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
Hi! I'm someone that would benefit greatly If something like plain language were more standard. I in no way, shape, or form feel condescended by the fact that people recognize that for reasons I, and others, have a hard limit on the amount of reading I can do in a day. In fact, everyone that's speaking in support of plan language, please continue to. Thanks!
However, I AM very insulted by the implications of your statement that simpler writing is "Dumber" than complicated writing. I could explain to you that I am in fact quite capable of reading complex texts, and parsing them, or that I am capable of retaining facts and figures. I'm not going to, because that doesn't really matter. Even if my particular issues were in those areas, I would still deserve basic respect and acknowledgement that my way of being human and gathering and processing information isn't inherently worse than yours.
posted by Gygesringtone at 11:52 AM on April 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
If Murderbot had expressed itself in simple, declarative sentences (instead of the messed up sarcasm that it usually employs) it would not be "better writing." It would be propaganda from the Capitalist Rim.
posted by SPrintF at 11:57 AM on April 1, 2022
posted by SPrintF at 11:57 AM on April 1, 2022
Strongly agree with the above reminders that plain language is not about dumbing things down. It's about making ideas clearer, and it's hard, important work. (See also Blaise Pascal, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.") I run into a lot of resistance to plain language principles along these lines in my editing work, and I’ve found the federal plain language guidelines at plainlanguage.gov a helpful set of starter resources to bring others on board.
PL is not about dumbing things down, and it's also not about artmaking. Most of the objections to PL I run into eventually fall back on a pearl-clutching “but we wouldn’t have Shakespeare if everyone wrote this way,” a strawman I wish I could set aflame just by glaring at it. Do not set up a dichotomy between Shakespeare* and social justice!
Because I too absolutely see plain language as a social justice issue. Over the last few years I’ve come to recognize the way my job as an editor has been used to uphold elitist, ableist, and racist norms, and plain language is one of the tools I’ve been using to push back against that—while still working in a job I need and am good at.
Outside of art, syntactic complexity is a kind of white-collar jobs program. If the wording of your legal document (or your financial instrument, or your insurance plan, etc.) is too complicated to be understood, then you’ll need other lawyers and analysts to adjust it or explain it, and those lawyers and analysts are assured of employment. In my first few jobs, I was hired to preserve that sort of complexity. I backed into non-literary editing (financial writing, science writing, journalism) with an English degree from a fancy school, a pedigree that was appealing to companies who wanted to market themselves to… people like me. Elevated diction has never been an explicit part of my job description, but tucked into vague “maintain professional standards” responsibilities is a kind of elitist gatekeeping function: make our writing look good to people who know that data are plural and kudos is singular. People who know not to write comprised of. People like me: bookish, educated at some fancy schools, and (not coincidentally) white.
*At every editing job I've had, at some stressful deadline, the person who hired me will hand me something to edit with a clucking tongue and an exhortation to speed: “just give it a quick editing pass, it doesn’t need to be Shakespeare.” In those very words, at every single job: it doesn’t need to be Shakespeare. The implication being: that’s what they think I’m doing all the time we’re not under deadline, fussing unhurriedly with their campaign appeal or academic abstract or grant proposal or whatever and making it Poetickal--and that that’s what they hired me to do! (Meanwhile, some disaffected workerdrone voice in my head mutters: Motherfucker, it was never going to be Shakespeare, just give me the file & let me get on with it so I can sweep your metaphors into neat, manageable piles and fix all the times you spelled assess without the final s so you don't show your whole ass, and still meet the damn deadline. Shakespeare my stinky non-iambic foot.)
posted by miles per flower at 12:04 PM on April 1, 2022 [16 favorites]
PL is not about dumbing things down, and it's also not about artmaking. Most of the objections to PL I run into eventually fall back on a pearl-clutching “but we wouldn’t have Shakespeare if everyone wrote this way,” a strawman I wish I could set aflame just by glaring at it. Do not set up a dichotomy between Shakespeare* and social justice!
Because I too absolutely see plain language as a social justice issue. Over the last few years I’ve come to recognize the way my job as an editor has been used to uphold elitist, ableist, and racist norms, and plain language is one of the tools I’ve been using to push back against that—while still working in a job I need and am good at.
Outside of art, syntactic complexity is a kind of white-collar jobs program. If the wording of your legal document (or your financial instrument, or your insurance plan, etc.) is too complicated to be understood, then you’ll need other lawyers and analysts to adjust it or explain it, and those lawyers and analysts are assured of employment. In my first few jobs, I was hired to preserve that sort of complexity. I backed into non-literary editing (financial writing, science writing, journalism) with an English degree from a fancy school, a pedigree that was appealing to companies who wanted to market themselves to… people like me. Elevated diction has never been an explicit part of my job description, but tucked into vague “maintain professional standards” responsibilities is a kind of elitist gatekeeping function: make our writing look good to people who know that data are plural and kudos is singular. People who know not to write comprised of. People like me: bookish, educated at some fancy schools, and (not coincidentally) white.
*At every editing job I've had, at some stressful deadline, the person who hired me will hand me something to edit with a clucking tongue and an exhortation to speed: “just give it a quick editing pass, it doesn’t need to be Shakespeare.” In those very words, at every single job: it doesn’t need to be Shakespeare. The implication being: that’s what they think I’m doing all the time we’re not under deadline, fussing unhurriedly with their campaign appeal or academic abstract or grant proposal or whatever and making it Poetickal--and that that’s what they hired me to do! (Meanwhile, some disaffected workerdrone voice in my head mutters: Motherfucker, it was never going to be Shakespeare, just give me the file & let me get on with it so I can sweep your metaphors into neat, manageable piles and fix all the times you spelled assess without the final s so you don't show your whole ass, and still meet the damn deadline. Shakespeare my stinky non-iambic foot.)
posted by miles per flower at 12:04 PM on April 1, 2022 [16 favorites]
heh, re: dumbing down, there's a lot of research that people with high levels of educational attainment, numeracy, health literacy, etc all benefit from plain language because it just increases the signal to noise ratio of information, and that's an unqualified good. it removes barriers to cognition.
posted by entropone at 12:17 PM on April 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by entropone at 12:17 PM on April 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
(Sorry for the double comment, I just wanted that point to stand by itself)
The first is inarguably good. The second is context dependent. The changes in the article are definitely not content-neutral! They remove information in order to convey what is left more clearly.
Yes, that's what editing is. Seriously, this is no more oppressive and dumbing down than whatever writing framework is used at your nearest college's Composition 101 class. It just places higher value in different elements of communication.
Separately, but because this keeps coming up, NOBODY is saying that everything ever should be written in that style. Here's the thing: I can read dense texts, and frequently do. I read music theory texts for fun sometimes! I LOVE weird fiction, I love works that play with language in new and exciting ways. It's just that, thanks to Long COVID my entire body just doesn't have access to energy the way it used to, and that's not a metaphor or anything, the cells in my body physically can't convert oxygen to energy at full efficiency. Reading and complex thought are especially tough for me. Like in a way where my brain stops having the energy for cognition and I basically just loose 3-4 hours of conscious thought if I do too much. So, yeah, if the choice is between reading the complicated handout about some important health issue from my kids' doctor's and (re)reading "100 Years of Solitude" I guess fiction dude's just going to have to wait on making those damn gold fish for awhile, sorry. BUT if whatever organization puts out that pamphlet spent the energy to write things with the plain language guidelines I can do both. And maybe tomorrow, if it's important to my understanding of the kids health I can look up more in depth information.
So can we please just stop with "this will kill ART!!!!!"? It's not about art, it's about access to information. People who have need for this kind of thing still have rich internal lives and still love beauty as much as you, they just want to be able to know when to call the Dr.
posted by Gygesringtone at 12:21 PM on April 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
The first is inarguably good. The second is context dependent. The changes in the article are definitely not content-neutral! They remove information in order to convey what is left more clearly.
Yes, that's what editing is. Seriously, this is no more oppressive and dumbing down than whatever writing framework is used at your nearest college's Composition 101 class. It just places higher value in different elements of communication.
Separately, but because this keeps coming up, NOBODY is saying that everything ever should be written in that style. Here's the thing: I can read dense texts, and frequently do. I read music theory texts for fun sometimes! I LOVE weird fiction, I love works that play with language in new and exciting ways. It's just that, thanks to Long COVID my entire body just doesn't have access to energy the way it used to, and that's not a metaphor or anything, the cells in my body physically can't convert oxygen to energy at full efficiency. Reading and complex thought are especially tough for me. Like in a way where my brain stops having the energy for cognition and I basically just loose 3-4 hours of conscious thought if I do too much. So, yeah, if the choice is between reading the complicated handout about some important health issue from my kids' doctor's and (re)reading "100 Years of Solitude" I guess fiction dude's just going to have to wait on making those damn gold fish for awhile, sorry. BUT if whatever organization puts out that pamphlet spent the energy to write things with the plain language guidelines I can do both. And maybe tomorrow, if it's important to my understanding of the kids health I can look up more in depth information.
So can we please just stop with "this will kill ART!!!!!"? It's not about art, it's about access to information. People who have need for this kind of thing still have rich internal lives and still love beauty as much as you, they just want to be able to know when to call the Dr.
posted by Gygesringtone at 12:21 PM on April 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
If the wording of your legal document (or your financial instrument, or your insurance plan, etc.) is too complicated to be understood, then you’ll need other lawyers and analysts to adjust it or explain it, and those lawyers and analysts are assured of employment.
I think there is some truth to that. But it's also true that legal documents are dense because they have to cover so many things. It's easy to say, lets make the whole thing simpler. But what about this? And what if this happens? And does this count as one of those?
Jargon often comes from a necessity to be precise. Does "joint tenancy" mean the same thing as "dual ownership"? You develop a weird or longer way of talking about things in order to make one meaning consistently different from another one.
posted by straight at 12:23 PM on April 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
I think there is some truth to that. But it's also true that legal documents are dense because they have to cover so many things. It's easy to say, lets make the whole thing simpler. But what about this? And what if this happens? And does this count as one of those?
Jargon often comes from a necessity to be precise. Does "joint tenancy" mean the same thing as "dual ownership"? You develop a weird or longer way of talking about things in order to make one meaning consistently different from another one.
posted by straight at 12:23 PM on April 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
I don't think anyone would argue against the concept of improving readability, but the way this article presents the approach isn't very convincing.
I agree with some points but don't think the article deserves criticism on this front. We are doing that metafilter is thing we do when an article is adjacent to a topic people care about and people assume the article is about that. It's really not.
Here the article is about improving accessibility, and the majority of responses are tying it into to overly jargon heavy business like writing and how we want people to write better in general. In context of the article--without reading the MeFi interpretation--I think it's a actually pretty clear* the article is about helping people access important topics with simplified versions of the article. They do explain how they do this, by having a human who rewrites for this purpose provide an annotated example, and then having two versions of their own article.
They aren't claiming you don't lose information. They are claiming that providing an accessible version helps people who needs access, especially people with ID or other problems that make it very hard or impossible to get any information from the non-simple written examples. And it's being discussed as whether it will help us, the sort of people who read and write for fun and like to argue about language such as "proactive" and "learnings" in our spare time and for whom "inersectionality" is a clarifying term.
*For some definitions of "pretty clear." I was not actually sure that's what they meant at first, as you'll see from my first comment. But then again my framing was skewed because I read the comments here first.
posted by mark k at 12:29 PM on April 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
I agree with some points but don't think the article deserves criticism on this front. We are doing that metafilter is thing we do when an article is adjacent to a topic people care about and people assume the article is about that. It's really not.
Here the article is about improving accessibility, and the majority of responses are tying it into to overly jargon heavy business like writing and how we want people to write better in general. In context of the article--without reading the MeFi interpretation--I think it's a actually pretty clear* the article is about helping people access important topics with simplified versions of the article. They do explain how they do this, by having a human who rewrites for this purpose provide an annotated example, and then having two versions of their own article.
They aren't claiming you don't lose information. They are claiming that providing an accessible version helps people who needs access, especially people with ID or other problems that make it very hard or impossible to get any information from the non-simple written examples. And it's being discussed as whether it will help us, the sort of people who read and write for fun and like to argue about language such as "proactive" and "learnings" in our spare time and for whom "inersectionality" is a clarifying term.
*For some definitions of "pretty clear." I was not actually sure that's what they meant at first, as you'll see from my first comment. But then again my framing was skewed because I read the comments here first.
posted by mark k at 12:29 PM on April 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
But it's also true that legal documents are dense because they have to cover so many things.
No. Legal documents must be precise. Often they must cover many things. They do not need to be dense in order to do so.
posted by plonkee at 12:30 PM on April 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
No. Legal documents must be precise. Often they must cover many things. They do not need to be dense in order to do so.
posted by plonkee at 12:30 PM on April 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
METAFILTER: a dichotomy between Shakespeare* and social justice!
posted by philip-random at 12:32 PM on April 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by philip-random at 12:32 PM on April 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
You're right. Dense is the wrong word. Legal documents have to be some combination of dense with jargon or exceedingly long with detail. Both are barriers to understanding.
posted by straight at 12:33 PM on April 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by straight at 12:33 PM on April 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
But it's also true that legal documents are dense because they have to cover so many things... Jargon often comes from a necessity to be precise.
Yes to the first point but no to the second. I think there's a distinction between technical language of specialized terms within a field and jargon; jargon's what happens when those specialized terms leak back out into lay usage, either with the intent of obfuscation or (more frequently IME) because non-experts are afraid to muck with a term they don't totally understand.
On legal writing in particular, I'd mention Bryan Garner's Legal Writing in Plain English here. He started out as a legal editor and he argues convincingly for simpler language in legal writing. (I find Garner an unbearably priggish & conservative gatekeeper around language, though he's also written reference books I use constantly and have great affection for--Modern English Usage and the grammar & usage section in recent editions of The Chicago Manual of Style.)
posted by miles per flower at 12:54 PM on April 1, 2022
Yes to the first point but no to the second. I think there's a distinction between technical language of specialized terms within a field and jargon; jargon's what happens when those specialized terms leak back out into lay usage, either with the intent of obfuscation or (more frequently IME) because non-experts are afraid to muck with a term they don't totally understand.
On legal writing in particular, I'd mention Bryan Garner's Legal Writing in Plain English here. He started out as a legal editor and he argues convincingly for simpler language in legal writing. (I find Garner an unbearably priggish & conservative gatekeeper around language, though he's also written reference books I use constantly and have great affection for--Modern English Usage and the grammar & usage section in recent editions of The Chicago Manual of Style.)
posted by miles per flower at 12:54 PM on April 1, 2022
"Jargon" is also the term used for the babbling syllables children make with the inflection of speech before they learn any words. If you have twins, it seems like they have their own language that only they understand, but it doesn't actually mean anything.
posted by straight at 2:09 PM on April 1, 2022
posted by straight at 2:09 PM on April 1, 2022
I think it's really essential (especially for folks who feel resistant to the concept) to note that this guide places plain language into the context of translation. Translation is (or ought to be) highly-skilled work, and is more technical art than science. Just because you disagree with a translator's choice doesn't mean the endeavor is bunk.
posted by dusty potato at 3:29 PM on April 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by dusty potato at 3:29 PM on April 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
Neither IKEA how-to nor Literature apply here, but my concern is for somewhere between those two at the level of your average magazine article/thinkpiece - I wouldn't want that to be "simplified" too much unless it's being wordy for the sake of being wordy. I already grar whenever I see complex sentences split into fragments because apparently most don't have the attention span anymore. Anyway, as pointed out that is not exactly what the post is about, but I wish it was a little, ahem, clearer on that. Nevertheless, good point taken.
posted by blue shadows at 3:32 PM on April 1, 2022
posted by blue shadows at 3:32 PM on April 1, 2022
Easy to translate, easy to understand, less likely to be misunderstood
posted by jellywerker
Yes to this! It is a skill we should invest more in. I agree with everything said in the thread so far, about how important and useful this is, but at the same time there was something disconcerting about reading the simple version.
I spent all day trying to write simple declarative sentences in a grant evaluation proposal.
I'm having quite a bit of trouble with this. I can write a bulleted list or flowchart or idea diagram with great ease, but I struggle with avoiding language like "This initiative seeks to comprehensively observe all portions of the community engagement" instead of "We want to film the conversation"
After a while, reading simple declarative statements gets really repetitive, too.
I'm going to read the federal plain language guidelines. Thanks for sharing those!
posted by rebent at 5:55 PM on April 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by jellywerker
Yes to this! It is a skill we should invest more in. I agree with everything said in the thread so far, about how important and useful this is, but at the same time there was something disconcerting about reading the simple version.
I spent all day trying to write simple declarative sentences in a grant evaluation proposal.
I'm having quite a bit of trouble with this. I can write a bulleted list or flowchart or idea diagram with great ease, but I struggle with avoiding language like "This initiative seeks to comprehensively observe all portions of the community engagement" instead of "We want to film the conversation"
After a while, reading simple declarative statements gets really repetitive, too.
I'm going to read the federal plain language guidelines. Thanks for sharing those!
posted by rebent at 5:55 PM on April 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think it's really essential (especially for folks who feel resistant to the concept) to note that this guide places plain language into the context of translation. Translation is (or ought to be) highly-skilled work, and is more technical art than science. Just because you disagree with a translator's choice doesn't mean the endeavor is bunk.
As a translator, my objections to the excising of a lot of context are double. I would have been fired for providing a translation with so much semantic content removed.
posted by Dysk at 1:55 AM on April 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
As a translator, my objections to the excising of a lot of context are double. I would have been fired for providing a translation with so much semantic content removed.
posted by Dysk at 1:55 AM on April 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
And that kind of gets to the heart of the matter for me. I don't think it's useful to present this as translation, or even as plain language if you're saying things like "yes sometimes you have to remove content". At this point, it's no longer simply about language, about translation from one set of expressions to another. It's beyond that, it's about plain communication because the changes it goes in for are not merely linguistic.
posted by Dysk at 2:00 AM on April 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 2:00 AM on April 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
The other thing on this topic that I'm always mentioning to my colleagues. If you are using technical terms and potentially unfamiliar jargon, then it's even more important to have simple sentence structure and everyday language otherwise. One of the most helpful suggestions is to use 'we' and 'you' for the author and the reader (if possible), and then to never use a long word when a shorter word would do. My got-to example is "use" instead of "utilise", but there are many similar pairs which are used interchangeably in most text written for a purpose. The shorter one is always better. Context should be provided where it is necessary, but getting your message across is not the same as writing down everything you know about a topic. Often a lot of detail can be removed.
Sometimes you have to accept that it's not possible to say everything you want to say and have it read and understood.
For the avoidance of doubt, this means that you should pick 'having it read and understood' over 'saying everything you want to say'. If it needs to communicate something but it's not going to be understood effectively, then why bother writing it in the first place.
posted by plonkee at 2:22 AM on April 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
Sometimes you have to accept that it's not possible to say everything you want to say and have it read and understood.
For the avoidance of doubt, this means that you should pick 'having it read and understood' over 'saying everything you want to say'. If it needs to communicate something but it's not going to be understood effectively, then why bother writing it in the first place.
posted by plonkee at 2:22 AM on April 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
For the avoidance of doubt, this means that you should pick 'having it read and understood' over 'saying everything you want to say'. If it needs to communicate something but it's not going to be understood effectively, then why bother writing it in the first place.
Except it's not a binary. It could easily be worth losing 99% of your potential readership to say what's important. Scientific writing that shows the underlying math or a history including extensive quotes from primary sources are both obvious examples of this.
There's a lot of middle ground involving ideas that may be complicated or simply unfamiliar to some readers.
posted by mark k at 7:43 AM on April 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Except it's not a binary. It could easily be worth losing 99% of your potential readership to say what's important. Scientific writing that shows the underlying math or a history including extensive quotes from primary sources are both obvious examples of this.
There's a lot of middle ground involving ideas that may be complicated or simply unfamiliar to some readers.
posted by mark k at 7:43 AM on April 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
First, nobody is suggesting doing anything to literature.*
Exists: The EasyEnglish Bible (based on a vocabulary of 1200 common English words).
posted by achrise at 9:53 AM on April 2, 2022
Exists: The EasyEnglish Bible (based on a vocabulary of 1200 common English words).
posted by achrise at 9:53 AM on April 2, 2022
Did you know that calling things "bullet points" is itself a simplification, replacing their proper jargony original name: Berger dots? Simplification? You're soaking in it!
posted by achrise at 10:01 AM on April 2, 2022
posted by achrise at 10:01 AM on April 2, 2022
A sense of déjà vu or perhaps schadenfreude at the modus operandi placing me in a cul-de-sac when trying to adopt the appropriate lingua franca has me seeking the dolce vita. Pro tempore and pro forme and with no intention of becoming a persona non grata I would hope that the pandemic will accept this smorgasbord of common parlance as the raison de etre MeFites vis-à-vis regular persona modus operandi as a piece de résistance sine qua non of the clear need for plain communication quid pro quo. Or not... quod erat demonstratum,
Que sera, sera
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 5:00 PM on April 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Que sera, sera
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 5:00 PM on April 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
This has begun to come up in Quaker contexts I'm a part of. On the one hand, "plain speech" is literally a foundational tenet of our religion. On the other hand, Quakers on the whole tend to be highly educated—especially in the midwest and west, a lot of Quaker meetings came into existence during the Vietnam War, and they tended to arise in liberal university towns. My own meeting is overstuffed with college professors, doctors, and lawyers.
As a group, then, Quakers tend to be comfortable with, and appreciate, good writing, of the type where "good" means, "draws on an extensive vocabulary; uses compound, complex, and compound-complex seTntences; and appreciates a good turn of phrase."
There's nothing wrong with that, per se, except that we want to be an inclusive community, so people who haven't studied rhetoric at the graduate level are more then welcome, except that we, again, as a group, tend to repel people who are working class, working poor, or poor, in all kinds of ways we do and don't recognize, and one of them is our style of language. It's not just Quaker jargon that people can bounce off, but the way we talk and write, especially when we're doing business.
When we've been offered resources similar to plain language, it can feel really impoverished. As if we're being asked to give up something we value. I'm a writer, a very good one, and intelligibility matters to me in all settings, but I also love a good turn of phrase, and the idea of converting all of our written Quaker materials into this kind of plain language kind of hurts. Even as I realize that not using plain language is one brick in a wall of social class markers a lot of people find it tough to navigate. Tough to the extent of not bothering, because so far as they can tell, we're not worth it.
I've been having to deal with government bureaucracies a lot lately, and, while it is on the whole extremely unsatisfying, I've been impressed by some of the plain language I've seen used. The use of bulleted lists, simple headings like "What You Need to Do Next," and vital points being repeated in more than one spot.
It reminds me of how important plain language is, and it spurs me to re-think what a melding of Quaker "plain speech," which traditionally means truthful speech, and this style of plain language might look like. Because accessible language is inclusion.
posted by Well I never at 2:09 PM on April 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
As a group, then, Quakers tend to be comfortable with, and appreciate, good writing, of the type where "good" means, "draws on an extensive vocabulary; uses compound, complex, and compound-complex seTntences; and appreciates a good turn of phrase."
There's nothing wrong with that, per se, except that we want to be an inclusive community, so people who haven't studied rhetoric at the graduate level are more then welcome, except that we, again, as a group, tend to repel people who are working class, working poor, or poor, in all kinds of ways we do and don't recognize, and one of them is our style of language. It's not just Quaker jargon that people can bounce off, but the way we talk and write, especially when we're doing business.
When we've been offered resources similar to plain language, it can feel really impoverished. As if we're being asked to give up something we value. I'm a writer, a very good one, and intelligibility matters to me in all settings, but I also love a good turn of phrase, and the idea of converting all of our written Quaker materials into this kind of plain language kind of hurts. Even as I realize that not using plain language is one brick in a wall of social class markers a lot of people find it tough to navigate. Tough to the extent of not bothering, because so far as they can tell, we're not worth it.
I've been having to deal with government bureaucracies a lot lately, and, while it is on the whole extremely unsatisfying, I've been impressed by some of the plain language I've seen used. The use of bulleted lists, simple headings like "What You Need to Do Next," and vital points being repeated in more than one spot.
It reminds me of how important plain language is, and it spurs me to re-think what a melding of Quaker "plain speech," which traditionally means truthful speech, and this style of plain language might look like. Because accessible language is inclusion.
posted by Well I never at 2:09 PM on April 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
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I took a plain language course and it literally changed the way I read and write. I don’t always apply what I learned, but I do try to write plainly as often as possible. And when I come across a text or website that’s written plainly, I get a little bit excited as I recognize all the hallmarks of plain writing I learned about.
Plain, clear writing is a social justice issue. I truly believe that.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:59 PM on March 31, 2022 [8 favorites]