What is Plain Language and Why Should You Care?

Author: CJ Walker

Date of Post: 22 November 2022

Some musings on plain language by Deborah Bosley, Firehead’s own plain language course instructor.

Think about the last time you received an email with dense paragraphs, or agreed to Terms and Conditions that you didn’t read so you could go to a website, or tried to understand your mobile bill? Or a dozen other situations in which you were expected to understand complex, poorly written, but important, content.

How do those situations make you feel? Not good, I’m sure.

What’s the problem?

Too Much Information

A study, from the University of California-San Diego determined that people receive the equivalent of 34 Gb (gigabytes) of information daily — that’s enough to overload a laptop within a week. No wonder we can’t keep up.

Not Enough Time

We have to sort through all the communication we receive to decide if it’s worth our time to read. My virtual wastebasket is always full even occasionally when the content is important or even crucial.

Overly Complex Content

Jargon, long sentences, long paragraphs, too many words, not easy to scan all contribute to content being too complex to read clearly and easily.

Lack of Focus on Customer Experience

Have you heard of another study from Princeton that determine that more complex the content, the more readers lost respect for the writer and the company?

Everyone’s guilty: government, corporations, organizations, and non-profits whether in technology, financial, health, or any other sector. Here’s an example of what I mean:

Original	Plain Language Version
When the process of freeing a vehicle that has been stuck results in ruts or holes, the operator will fill the rut or hole created by such activity before removing the vehicle from the immediate area. 36 words in one sentence	If you make a hole while freeing a stuck vehicle, you must fill the hole before you drive away. 19 words in one sentence.

I don’t know about you, but the original would take time to figure out what I’m supposed to do, whereas the revision shows me immediately.

So what can you do?

Plain language to the rescue! We can solve these problems by using plain language to craft our content. The internationally accepted definition of plain language is this:

Communication is in plain language if its wording, structure, and design are so clear that the intended audience can easily find what they need, understand what they find, and use that information.

Plain language uses the following strategies:

Focus on your audience.
Make your purpose obvious.
Use pronouns when you can.
State your main point(s) first.
Limit sentences to 15-20 words.
Limit paragraphs to three sentences.
Write in active voice. Use the passive voice only in rare cases.
Use common words. If you must use technical or industry terms, explain them.
Omit unneeded words.
Use headings, lists, and tables to make reading easier.
Use visuals whenever possible.
Phrase content positively.

Why bother?

Besides making your customers or clients happy because your content is easy to find, understand, and use, these are additional advantages:

Save time and money

Studies show that companies using plain language get fewer calls to the call center.

Increase trust

Customers and clients trust companies that use less jargon.

Improve branding

If your company is associated with easy-to-understand content, that’s a win for your branding efforts.

Meet regulatory requirements

Across the world, a multitude of countries require that certain types of content be written in plain language.

Make your employees more productive

If an employee wastes time trying to figure out what their benefits are, for example, that’s time that could be spend on improving customer relations, or produce development, or any number of internal activities.