Plain Talk Basics

How to get your message across to your readers

What is Plain Talk?

• Clear communication that answers the reader’s questions

• Concise communication that considers the reader’s time

• Well designed documents that guide the readers to key points and required action

JOB #1

As a writer, your one and only job is to be understood by your audience

So, Plain Talk rule # 1 is know your audience

Rule #1

Your message should answer the following questions:

• What information do you have that they need to know?

• Why do they need to know it?

• Do they need to do something with it?

• When do they need to do it?

Some Plain Talk Basics

Make sure you and your reader are speaking the same language

• Avoid acronyms and jargon

• Use active voice

• Use pronouns

• Use common, everyday words

• Keep sentences and paragraphs short

• Use logical organization

• Use headlines and bulleted lists as guideposts

What is jargon?

Jargon is shorthand that we use to communicate with each other.

This is the RFP for the new TPA at UMP. I have

to drop it off at OFM before PEBB’s FSA

meeting today.

I have to go to a meeting on BHP recert

procedures, but I can meet you for lunch if we can get back in time for

FAB’s GMAP presentation at 1

o’clock.

We know jargon when we hear it, but we may not recognize it when we use it.

Here are some terms we use that our customers may not understand:

• COC (Certificate of Coverage)

• PEBB (Public Employee Benefits Board)

• Recertification

•Cost-share

• Out-of-pocket limit

• Deductible

• Beneficiary

• Coinsurance

• WAC (Washington Administrative Code)

• RCW (Revised Code of Washington)

•

If you must use a term that is not commonly known to most readers, or one that has more than one meaning…

What is a certificate of coverage?

…explain what you mean…Oh, OK…it says right here…a COC is the

booklet that gives me the details of my plan’s coverage.

What is active voice?

In sentences written in active voice, the subject performs the action expressed in the verb. The subject acts.

It’s simply saying who does what to whom, in that order. Here is an example: The dog bit the boy.

In passive voice, the boy would have been bitten by the dog: The boy was bitten by the dog.

So what?

Either way, the boy has a bite and the dog is in trouble. Right?

Right, but it takes the reader less time and effort to get the message when you use active voice.

Sentences in active voice are:

• Generally clearer and more direct

• More concise because fewer words are required to express action

Here are some more examples:• Passive: Your application was rejected for lack of complete

information.Active: We rejected your application because you did not give us all of the information we requested.

• Passive: Your enrollment will be canceled if your payment is not received by the due date.Active: We will cancel your enrollment if we do not receive your payment by the due date.

• Passive: Your student’s dependent coverage will no longer be in effect because eligibility rules were not met.

• Active: We have canceled your student’s dependent coverage because he no longer qualifies as a dependent under PEBB rules.

Use pronouns to make clear who is responsible for what actions

• If you don’t pay your bill on time we will cancel your enrollment.

• We will send you a new card as soon as you send in your completed application.

• If you do not choose a new health plan during open enrollment, we will enroll you in the Uniform Medical Plan.

Please don’t ever say: Mistakes were made.

If we made a mistake, we will fix it.

If you make a mistake, we will ask you to fix it.

Use common, everyday words

I love words but I don't like strange ones. You don't understand them and they don't understand you. Old words is like old friends, you know 'em the minute you see 'em.

Will Rogers

Most readers feel the same way as America’s cowboy poet felt.

Your customers shouldn’t have to use a dictionary to be able to understand you.

Important Announcement:

National Talk-Like-A-Bureaucrat Month has been canceled.

The new rule: speak your customer’s language.

With this:

• you

• aid, help

• begin, start

• carry out, start

• by, following, per, under

• for, so

• for

Replace this:

• addressees

• assist, assistance

• commence

• implement

• in accordance with

• in order that

• in the amount of

And the list goes on…Replace this:

• in the event of

• promulgate (lawyers love this)

• regarding

• submit

• subsequent

• terminate

• utilize, utilization

With this:

• if

• issue, publish

• about

• give, send

• next

• end, stop

• use

For many more simple word suggestions and other Plain Language tips, go to http://www.plainlanguage.gov/

Some good advice for writers from some

really smart people:

The most valuable of talents is never using two words when one will do."  Thomas Jefferson (He’s the second one from the left.)

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. Albert Einstein (He’s the one with the big hair.)

Short, sweet, and to the point. Clear writing, and therefore clear

commands, comes from clear thinking. Think simple. Timothy Ferriss (He’s the one who wrote The 4-Hour Workweek.)

Why use short sentences?

Clear writing is as much about organization as it is about using the right words.

Short sentences and single-idea paragraphs give readers information in bite-size pieces that are easy to digest.

What do you mean by “logical organization?”

It’s anticipating the reader’s questions and answering them in the order they occur.

What will they think of next?

What will they think of next?

Give your readers a road map

Use headlines to break up material and make it easy for readers to skim until they find the

information they need.

Use bulleted or numbered lists to draw attention to:

• Choices• Multiple requirements• Steps in a process.

The bitter truth?It’s not about you.

It’s all about them—the reader.

So, leave your ego and your college vocabulary at the door.

You work for the people, and you need to speak their language. Use words that work, not words meant to impress.

Use familiar words—words that your readers will understand, and not words they will have to look up. No advice is more elementary, and no advice is more difficult to accept. When we feel an impulse to use a marvelously exotic word, let us lie down until the impulse goes away. James J. KilpatrickJournalist, author, and syndicated columnist

In summary…

Plain talk is not rocket science.

And it’s not literature….

It’s communicating….

Giving people information…

Speaking their language…

Anticipating their questions…

The best way to test your messages?

• Try them out on a coworker or family member.

• Ask them to read your document and tell you what they think it says.

• You will probably be surprised—and not in a good way.

A final word…

One should aim

not at being possible to understand,

but at being impossible to misunderstand. Quintilian, Roman teacher of rhetoric and oratory

Some excellent onlinePlain Talk resources:

• Governor Gregoire’s Web site

• Plain Language.gov