Plain Language and Ethical Action

A Dialogic Approach to Technical Content in the 21st Century

Russell Willerton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780415741040
• eBook ISBN: 9781317752080
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Plain Language and Ethical Action examines and evaluates principles and practices of plain language that technical content producers can apply to meet their audiences' needs in an ethical way. Applying the BUROC framework (Bureaucratic, Unfamiliar, Rights-Oriented, and Critical) to identify situations in which audiences will benefit from plain language, this work offers in-depth profiles show how six organizations produce effective plain-language content. The profiles show plain-language projects done by organizations ranging from grassroots volunteers on a shoe-string budget, to small nonprofits, to consultants completing significant federal contacts. End-of-chapter questions and exercises provide tools for students and practitioners to reflect on and apply insights from the book. Reflecting global commitments to plain language, this volume includes a case study of a European group based in Sweden along with results from interviews with plain-language experts around the world, including Canada, England, South Africa. Portugal, Australia, and New Zealand.

This work is intended for use in courses in information design, technical and professional communication, health communication, and other areas producing plain language communication. It is also a crucial resource for practitioners developing plain-language technical content and content strategists in a variety of fields, including health literacy, technical communication, and information design.

1
Understanding Plain Language and Opportunities to Use It

Over the past several decades, advocates around the world have urged people writing for audiences of consumers and citizens to use plain language. According to UK plain-language advocate Martin Cutts (2009), plain language is the “writing and setting out of essential information in a way that gives a cooperative, motivated person a good chance of understanding it at first reading, and in the same sense that the writer meant it to be understood” (xi). Steinberg (1991a) writes that plain language “reflects the interests and needs of the reader and the consumer rather than the legal, bureaucratic, or technological interests of the writer or the organization the writer represents” (7). Advocates for plain language around the world have identified principles of word choice, verb selection, sentence construction, visual design, organization, and usability testing that make complex technical documents easier for nonexpert consumers and citizens to use (Cutts 2009; Steinberg 1991b). When constituents can use their documents more quickly and effectively, companies and government agencies save money; for example, Kimble (2012) provides 50 examples of plain-language projects that saved readers time and money and that reached audiences effectively. While people tend to use the terms “plain language,” “plain English,” and “plain writing” interchangeably (Greer 2012), “plain language” is the most inclusive of these terms. Plain-language practitioners around the world apply key concepts from the movement usefully in many languages and cultures.

Although plain language has grown in prevalence around the world, researchers have done little work to understand the degree to which plain language is a means for technical communicators to do ethical work. Because theorists believe that the broad field of technical communication is rhetorical and humanistic—for example, see Miller (1979) and Ornatowski (1992), among many others—it is important to continually assess and examine how technical communicators face and respond to ethical situations. Two examples show how some disagree over whether plain language is ethical. The first is from Brockmann’s (1989b) introduction to Technical Communication and Ethics, a collection of articles and essays published by the Society for Technical Communication. Brockmann explains why the collection does not address plain language: “Plain language, although a readability concern, is not necessarily an ethical concern. Identification of plain language with ethical language mistakes the outward signs of ethics, plain language, for true ethical actions” (v). Writing more than two decades after Brockmann, Graves and Graves (2011) state in their textbook on technical communication that “at its heart, plain language involves an ethical relationship between the reader and writer. As a writer, you must want to communicate with your audience clearly” (71). In this book, I explore the extent to which a middle ground exists between these two examples while reaffirming the humanistic concerns of technical communication.

Over the past several decades, plain-language advocates around the world have worked for clearer government forms, laws that citizens can readily understand, and letters that clearly explain how to obtain government benefits. The US now has its first federal law requiring plain-language activities in government agencies, the Plain Writing Act of 2010. Perhaps this is an opportune time to determine whether a new perspective on plain language and ethics exists between the perspectives that Brockmann and Graves and Graves articulate. To that end, this book focuses on two main questions:

• Is plain language an ethical concern?
• What processes and procedures can help plain-language writers do ethical work that helps their audiences?

An Overview of the Worldwide Movement toward Plain Language

Several authors and editors provide insight into the development of the plain-language movement around the world. Concern for plain language has often focused on documents produced by government agencies, but it now extends to law, health and medicine, and many aspects of business. A review of the plain-language movement’s history helps identify the social forces behind the movement and demonstrates that concerns about confusing, bureaucratic language are long-standing.

Early Developments in Plain-English Style

References to plain-English style date back to the fourteenth century. See table 1.1 for a brief list of developments in plain-English style between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.

TABLE 1.1 Early developments in plain-English style.

Century	Development in plain-English style
Fourteenth Century	The Host in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales exhorts the learned Clerke of Oxenford to speak plainly so the pilgrims may understand him (McArthur 1991, 14).
Sixteenth Century	Writers of technical books in English in the sixteenth century used plain style for their audiences. But because writers used plain-English style outside of traditional literary genres, this style choice did not receive much attention (Tebeaux 1997).
Seventeenth Century	The first person to refer to “plain English” as opposed to florid, ornate English may be Robert Cawdrey, who compiled the first known English dictionary in 1604. His Table Alphabeticall uses English words to define difficult words borrowed from languages like Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Cawdrey’s stated audience for the dictionary was women. Without formal education, women had “no easy way of appreciating the layer of Latinity that had formed, as it were, along the top of traditional English” (McArthur 1991, 13).
	Francis Bacon prominently advocated for plain style in science, as did the Royal Society. Women writers such as Margaret Cavendish and Jane Sharp used plain style to reach their audiences (Tillery 2005).

Influences on the Plain-Language Movement in the Early- and Mid-Twentieth Century

As table 1.2 shows, activities in the US and the UK influenced developments in plain language in the early- and mid-twentieth century.

New Momentum in the 1970s

According to Redish (1985), before 1970 bureaucrats faced no mandates to write in ways that consumers could understand. In the 1970s, presidential executive orders and changes in federal and state laws helped give legitimacy to the plain-language movement. Fervent consumer activism and an increase in government paperwork brought new attention to the problems of unclear bureaucratic language. Table 1.3 lists several developments from this decade in the US and the UK.

Responses in the US to a Particular Type of Unclear Language

In the early 1970s, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) took a stand against a particular type of unclear language. Advertisers, politicians, and others in the media during that era intentionally used unclear language, called “doublespeak” in reference to George Orwell’s novel 1984, to mislead public audiences. While many bureaucratic documents embody sloppy thinking, convoluted vocabulary, and poor efforts at communication, writers carefully craft doublespeak to mislead audiences and distort reality (Lutz 1988, 41). Table 1.4 provides a brief list of responses to doublespeak in the US.

TABLE 1.2 Influences on the plain-language movement from the 1900s to the 1970s.

Area of activity	Influence on the plain-language movement
US Government	Maury Maverick, once chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation, wrote a memo in 1944 to everyone in the corporation requesting that lengthy memoranda and “gobbledygook” language be replaced by short and clear memoranda. Maverick coined the term “gobbledygook” after recalling the sights and sounds of a bearded turkey strutting and gobble-gobbling about (Greer 2012, 4).
	In 1953, Stuart Chase wrote The Power of Words, which includes a chapter bemoaning gobbledygook in bureaucracies, law, and universities. In 1966, John O’Hayre of the Bureau of Land Management released 16 essays on plain-English writing for business and government in Gobbledygook Has Gotta Go (Redish 1985, 128).
UK Government	Ernest Gowers advocated for civil servants to communicate clearly. A training pamphlet he wrote in 1943 later grew into the book Plain Words in 1948. Gowers published a companion reference book, The ABC of Plain Words, in 1951. Gowers combined those two books into The Complete Plain Words in 1954, a volume reprinted many times (Kimble 2012, 51–52).
	In 1946, British author George Orwell complained about the “slovenliness” of writing about government and politics in modern English. In his classic essay, “Politics and the English Language,” which has appeared in writing anthologies for decades, Orwell (2005) provides six succinct rules to help writers remove vagueness and pomposity.
US Education and Research	Although studies of factors affecting the readability of texts date back as far as the 1890s in the US, research on readability increased notably after researchers surveyed and tested adult literacy. The military started literacy surveys in 1917; other agencies began testing civilians and students soon after (DuBay 2004).
	Prominent researchers from this era include Rudolph Flesch, who released his Reading Ease formula in 1948 (Kimble 2012, 49–50), as well as William S. Gray and Bernice Leary, Irving Lorge, Edgar Dale and Jeanne Chall, Robert Gunning, Wilson Taylor, and George Klare (DuBay 2004).
	Researchers have developed hundreds of readability formulas over time. Experts have long debated how and whether these formulas should be used, especially because the formulas focus on a text’s surface features—numbers of syllables, words, and sentences. Readability formulas are important in the history of plain language because they have influenced understandings of plainness and clarity and because some laws and regulations require plain-language texts to meet particular readability scores.

TABLE 1.3 Developments in the plain-language movement in the 1970s.

Government entity	Development in the plain-language movement
US Government	In 1972, President Richard Nixon decreed that the Federal Register should use layman’s terms and clear language (Dorney 1988).
	In 1977, the Commission on Paperwork issued a report strongly recommending that the government rewrite documents into language and formats that consumers could understand (Redish 1985, 129).
	Congress also passed several laws that required warranties, leases, and banking transfers to be clear and readable. These included the Magnuson-Moss Warranty-Federal Trade Commission Act of 1973, the Consumer Leasing Act of 1976, and the Electronic Fund Transfer Act of 1978 (Greer 2012, 5).
	President Jimmy Carter issued executive orders requiring plain language in 1978 and 1979. Executive Order 12044 set up a regulatory reform program that required major regulations to be written in plain English so that constituents could comply with them. Executive Order 12174 required agencies to use only necessary forms, to make the forms as short and simple as possible, and to budget the time required to process paperwork annually. President Carter also signed the Paperwork Reduction Act, which took effect after he left office (Redish 1985, 129).
	President Ronald Reagan rescinded Carter’s orders requiring plain language. Reagan did, however, support regulatory reform and the Paperwork Reduction Act (Redish 1985, 129–30). Reagan’s secretary of commerce, Malcolm Baldridge, argued for using plain language in business and industry (Bowen, Duffy, and Steinberg 1991).
State of New York	In 1975, Citibank shocked the financial community by dramatically simplifying a loan document. The original loan note had about 3,000 words, but the revised note had 600 (Redish 1985, 130).
	In 1977, New York became the first state to enact a law requiring plain language. Named the Sullivan Law for its sponsor, Assemblyman Peter Sullivan, it requires businesses (including individual landlords) to write contracts with consumers using words with common, everyday meanings (Felsenfeld 1991).
	At least ten other states later followed New York’s lead. Critics predicted a wave of lawsuits over the new contracts, but few filed lawsuits (Kimble 2012, 54–56).
UK Government	The 1974 Consumer Credit Act became the first British law to require plain English. It requires credit-reference agencies to give consumers, upon request, the contents of their files in plain English they can readily understand (Cutts 2009, xvii).
	In a 1979 protest in Parliament Square, campaigners for plain English publicly shred...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Series Editor Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Understanding Plain Language and Opportunities to Use It
• 2 Overview of Ethics in the Technical and Professional Communication Literature
• 3 Perspectives on Plain Language and Ethics from Professionals around the World
• 4 Profile—Healthwise, Inc.
• 5 Profile—Civic Design
• 6 Profile—Restyling the Federal Rules of Evidence
• 7 Profile—CommonTerms
• 8 Profile—Health Literacy Missouri
• 9 Profile—Kleimann Communication Group and TILA–RESPA Documentation
• 10 Public Examples of Dialogic Communication in Clear Language in the Twenty-First Century
• 11 Conclusion
• References
• Index