Structure and organization is a central principle in plain English. So is making your document easy to navigate. To this end, I invite you to become reacquainted with an often forgotten ‘friend’ on the far left of your keyboard.
The tab key is the one key on the keyboard designed to make information simpler. Consider the [...]
Archive for June, 2009
Make friends with ‘Tab’
June 25th, 2009
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Education Bureau: preventing the spread of flu; giving parents a headache
June 15th, 2009
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The folks at the Education Bureau have proved once again that they are masters of complexity. (Which, by the way, is not a good thing!)
Here’s an extract of a template on their website which, they suggest, may be sent to parents explaining the closure of schools.
It’s 885 words that require a college degree, a good [...]
Warren Buffet does it. So can you.
June 10th, 2009
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Warren Buffet. A remarkably successful businessman. One of the world’s most successful investors. Stock Market Guru. Generous philanthropist.
But did you know that Mr. Buffett is also a master of clear and persuasive writing? He writes what he means. He writes with a specific person in mind.
Here’s an extract from a mutual fund prospectus – not [...]
The Principles of Plain English
June 10th, 2009
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Plain English writing:
* is clear and simple
* is appropriate to your audience
* is direct and personal
* favours language neutral in tone
* draws on common, everyday language
* is accessible to a wide audience
* explains technical words in simple language (when necessary)
* attempts to interest readers and hold their attention
* relies heavily on simple sentence structures
* generally [...]
What swine wrote this?
June 5th, 2009
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Noticed on a wall on our university campus:
So, what’s wrong with it? Two things.
1) The major mistake is in the structure. The two verbs ‘join’ and ’seek’ joined by the conjunction ‘and’ share the meaning of ‘not’. If it were written as a list, it would go like this:
Participants are reminded not to:
- join any [...]
