Federal Communicators
Network and Plain Language Workshop
September 25, 1998
Internet Resources
Sareen R. Gerson,
FCN Steering Committee
September 15, 1998
The Elements of Style.
William Strunk, Jr.
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/strunk/strunk100.html
On-line edition of the book
privately printed in 1918. Columbia University.
Academic Information Systems (AcIS), Bartleby
Library. Transcribed, proofread, and marked-up in
HTML, May 1995.
Before the well-known The
Elements of Style by William Strunk,
Jr. and E.B.White, there was “the little
book” -- written for Professor Strunk’s
students at Cornell. One of them, E.B.White,
relates, in his introduction to the revised and
enlarged (hard copy) edition:
“All through The
Elements of Style one finds evidences of
the author’s deep sympathy for the
reader. Will felt that the reader was in
serious trouble most of the time, a man
floundering in a swamp, and that it was the
duty of anyone attempting to write English to
drain this swamp quickly and get his man up
on dry ground, or at least throw him a
rope.”
Both the 1918 edition,
available now on-line, and the current
hardback/paperback edition are recommended.
Government Initiatives
Plain Language Partners Ltd.
http://www.web.net/-raporter/English/Government/index.html
Links to U.S., Canadian,
Swedish government web pages on Plain Language.
Ontario Government has issued two workbooks: Plain
Language - User’s Guide and Implementing
Plain Language - A Manager’s Guide.
HUD: Buying Your Home:
Settlement Costs and Helpful Information.
Department of Housing and Urban Development
booklet, June 1997.
http://www.hud.gov/fha/res/sfhrestc.html
HUD explains market practices
and the roles of settlement participants in
layman’s language. Good example of clear
writing with no loss of content.
Introduction to Plain
Language.
Plain Language Online.
http://www.web.net/-raporter/English/Introduction/intro.html
Planning guidelines, audience
considerations, process, tips for writing and
revising, useability testing.
Kimble, Joseph. “Answering
the Critics of Plain Language.”
Article from Vol.5 of The Scribes Journal of
Legal Writing (1994-1995).
http://www.blm.gov/nhp/main/regtest/kimble.html
“It is much harder to
simplify than to complicate. Anybody can take
the sludge from formbooks, thicken it with a
few more provisions, and leave it at that.
Only the best minds and best writers can cut
through. In short, writing simply and
directly only looks easy. It takes skill and
work and fair time to compose . . .”
The Law Report, Tuesday, 9
January 1996, The Fascinating History of
Legal Language.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s
national radio network weekly program: a Radio
National Transcript.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/lawrpt
“. . . Many foreign
concepts and terms were embedded in English
law . . . a reason for the doublings and
triplings of words that are typically used in
legal language, such as ‘give, devise
and bequeath.’ ‘Give” is Old
English; “devise” is Old French
derived from Latin; ‘bequeath’ is
Old English. In ‘goods and
chattels’, ‘goods is English;
‘chattels’ is French. This use of
two or three words, when one ought to be
enough, still continues . . .”
Online Technical Writing:
Online Textbook -- Contents.
Course taught by David A. McMurrey, Austin
Community College, Austin TX.
( hcexres@io.com
)
http://www.io.com/~hcexres/tcml603/acchtml/acctoc.html
Links to thirty online help
topics, such as Power-Revision Techniques --
Redundant phrasing. Examples: “Wordy set
phrases (where a 4- to 5-word phrase can be
chopped to a 1- or 2-word phrase with no loss of
meaning): ‘in view of the fact that’
can be reduced to ‘since’ or
‘because’ and obvious qualifiers (where
a word is implicit in the word it modifies):
‘anticipate in advance.’”
A Plain English Handbook:
How to Create Clear SEC Disclosure Documents.
U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
This is the final version of the draft handbook
issued in 1997, now in two PDF files to
facilitate printing. A hard copy of the handbook
will be available later this fall.
http://www.sec.gov/news/handbook.html
The SEC has issued a useful
guide that is not only for disclosure writers.
Many examples show how sentences are improved
using Plain English tips. Advice extends to the
design process, layout, and choice of typefaces
-- very important in enhancing clarity. [The SEC
Plain English rule banning arcane jargon in
specific sections of investment documents and
mandating that companies write them in clear,
simple language goes into effect October 1,
1998.]
“Plain English” Regulations.
Environmental Protection Agency, New Directions:
A Report on Regulatory Reinvention. May 1997
http://www.epa.gov/reinvent/new597/Plain.html
Before-and-after language
samples -- hazardous waste rulemaking.
See also EPA’s The
Plain English Guide to the Clear Air Act.
April 1993.
http://www.epa.gov/oar/oaqps/peg_caa/pegcaain.html
Plain Language Tools.
National Archives and Records Administration,
Office of the Federal Register.
http://www.nara.gov/fedreg
Detailed guidance for
“Making Regulations Readable” and
“Drafting Legal Documents.” Also,
“Words and Expressions to Avoid” and
“Preferred Expressions” (e.g.,
don’t say, “for the duration of,”
say “during.”)
Purdue OWL Handouts.
Perdue University Online Writing Lab (School of
Liberal Arts).
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/Files
Many topics, including Conciseness;
Methods of Eliminating Wordiness; Some Strategies
for Improving Sentence Clarity (e.g.,
“Try not to string nouns together one after
the other because a series of nouns is difficult
to understand. One way to revise . . . change one
noun to a verb.” Example: “Unclear:
This theory calls for growth reduction
capabilities. Clearer: This theory calls for the
capability of reducing growth.)
Rapport: news about plain
language.
Rapport Communication Projects, The Precedent
Group, Consultants, Vancouver B.C.
http://rapport.bc.ca
The UVic Writer’s Guide.
Department of English, University of Victoria,
British Columbia.
http://webserver.maclab.comp.uvic.ca/writ...e/Pages
Various aspects of writing
Plain English. “Revising: Determine
whether or not you need a given sentence to
advance your argument. If you are only spinning
your wheels, then that sentence must go.”
Writing User-Friendly
Documents.
The Plain English Network (PEN).
http://www.blm.gov/nhp/NPR/wrtg_idx.html
Major Plain Language guidance
document issued by the Plain Language Action
Network (PLAN), established by NPR and OMB,
guided by the Plain English Network (PEN). See
also: http://plainlanguage.gov
or e-mail info@plainlanguage.gov if your
agency needs assistance.
Writers’ Workshop
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/cws/wworkshop/ww_tech.html
Links to internet resources for
business and technical writers; practical writing
advice (e.g., “Don’t let rough draft
fuzziness become final draft fuzziness.”
“Eliminate the unnecessaries.”)
The Writing Center.
Department of Language, Literature, and
Communication, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
http://www.rpi.edu/web/writingcenter
Online handouts: Memos;
Suggestions for Revising Prose; others. Example:
“Avoid confusing pronouns: Faulty: As
the temperature falls, a compressive stress is
exerted by the bezel on the glass because of its
greater temperature coefficient. Better:
As the temperature falls, the bezel, because of
its greater temperature coefficient, exerts a
compressive stress on the glass.”
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