{
    "version" : "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1",
    "content" : "news",
    "type" : "single",
    "title" : "Plain Language Expert |Digital.gov",
    "description": "Plain Language Expert",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2013/09/26/plain-language-expert/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"Plain Language Expert","summary" : "A few days ago a coworker asked me to look at a paragraph. He said it was on the top customer service priorities in our division. So I scooted my chair over and looked at it. Then I looked at him and asked, “But what","date" : "2013-09-26T08:24:42-04:00","date_modified" : "2025-01-27T19:42:55-05:00","authors" : {"katherine-spivey" : "Katherine Spivey"},"topics" : {
        
            "communication" : "Communication",
            "content-strategy" : "Content strategy",
            "plain-language" : "Plain language",
            "user-experience" : "User experience"
            },"branch" : "bc-archive-content-3",
      "filename" :"2013-09-26-plain-language-ninja.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2013/09/2013-09-26-plain-language-ninja.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2013/09/2013-09-26-plain-language-ninja.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2013/09/2013-09-26-plain-language-ninja.md","slug" : "plain-language-expert","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2013/09/26/plain-language-expert/","content" :"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2014/01/Community-Center-Kids-Computers-Google-Creative-Commons-300x151.jpg\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2014/01/Community-Center-Kids-Computers-Google-Creative-Commons-300x151-250x125.jpg\"\n    alt=\"community center children work at a computer\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\u003c/a\u003eA few days ago a coworker asked me to look at a paragraph. He said it was on the top customer service priorities in our division.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo I scooted my chair over and looked at it. Then I looked at him and asked, “But what is it supposed to do?”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe said, “It’s supposed to convey, at a very high level, what we’re doing in the next year.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI said, “Oh.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy next words were, “Can I have your mouse?”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBecause what I saw was a paragraph about 15 lines long. And the words “pilot study” were in the first sentence. I could guess where this was going.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe wanted to tell me about the pilot study; I didn’t want to hear about the pilot study.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI wanted the results.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo I took the mouse and went through my routine, honed by about 20 years of plain language editing..\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo my first step was to separate all the sentences so I could see them distinctly.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen I deleted the pilot study sentences.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen I moved the last two sentences to the top.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen I connected two sentences, took out three prepositional phrases, and changed all “Divisions” to “We.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI moved the screen over to my coworker. “How’s that?” I asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHis eyes were bugged out in surprise. “How did you do that so quickly?” he said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou too can be a plain language expert.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere’s what you do:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOrganize for the reader reader-centered\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUse design features such as headers, tables, and bullets\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eShorten your sentences and paragraphs\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUse “you,” “we,” and other pronouns\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUse active voice, not passive\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFocus on verbs, not nouns\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUse consistent terms, not jargon or acronyms\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUse common, everyday words\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n"}
  ]
}