Is this plain language? Part 2 for local government projects
MORE ways to help _your grandma_ navigate the subject-matter fog
Last time introduced your grandma as a proxy for your local government project’s true audience. Many or even all the conditions related to equity/inclusion and eased by using plain language have applied or may soon apply to her (or yes, to your grandpa, but they have shorter lifespans).
Last time described plain language in terms of traits related to honesty and authenticity. Now it’s time to get a little more technical with structures and workflows.
Subject/verb/object (SVO)
Remember: The Flesch-Kincaid readability formula, built into Microsoft Word (the full version, not the browser/app version), rewards short sentences. Strive for each of your public-facing sentences to have just one subject and just one verb. Handle multiples by breaking out a separate sentence for each — or maybe by using a bullet list.
Don’t do this:
Using a variety of outreach activities including in-person and online open houses, listening sessions, tabling activities, and more, the project team was able to gain specific feedback from approximately 500 people.
That has at least one decoy subject and five decoy verbs to challenge your grandma. The true subject and verb (yucky, intransitive “team was [able]”) don’t appear until the middle. It scores at reading grade level 21. (Got Ph.D.?)
Instead, rewrite it like this:
We heard from nearly 500 people over five months at:
Two open-house events.
An online open house.
Five tabling sessions near transit stops.
Three listening sessions with specific groups.
Now it scores at grade level 6 — lower middle school. “We” is the subject, right up front. “Heard” is the one verb. All the rest, including the bullet list, is the object.
POV: second person
Lots of writing guides define the first-person (I, we) point of view, then skip to third person (they, them). That implies the existence of second person, yet you rarely see it covered. That’s a shame because It’s a relevant point of view for lots of public-facing writing.
Second-person POV addresses “you,” the reader. Sometimes it’s explicit (don’t look now, but you’re soaking in it) and sometimes it’s implied in instructions: “Use the short word [with ‘you’ implied as the doer]….”
When you’re defining why your grandma should care (value proposition) or letting her know what you want her to do (call to action), those are great times to use second-person POV.
Formality and contractions
With plain language, Word’s readability stats may ding you for (lack of) “Formality.” Usually it’s because you’re using common contractions (like “it’s” and “you’re” in this paragraph).
When this happens, ignore it. Contractions are part of plain language. You should mostly use them. Would you suddenly start talking all stilted and formal to your grandma? Clients or prime contractors who tell you to eradicate contractions from public-facing writing are likely well meaning but just plain wrong.
Edits and additions
You can write something public-facing at a nice, low grade level but a client or prime will add more that they forgot, or edit for a change that just came up — and usually they will do it in full-on wonk/geek language. This will blow up your reading grade level, which is a clear sign that it’s not plain language and it’s working against your grandma’s engagement.
Clients’ and primes’ edits or additions nearly always need you to keep the gist but restore plain language. Don’t just pass them through!
Example: Here's an addition from a client:
To optimally leverage community construction impacts and funds, the project will take advantage of synergy opportunities to make upgrades to wastewater, stormwater, and water infrastructure concurrently with the pedestrian and bicycle improvements.
That’s reading grade level 24 (Got Ph.D.?), so rewrite it like this:
Before we add sidewalks and bike lanes, we’ll upgrade the water and sewer pipes beneath. Combining the work will save money — and we won’t need to close the street twice.
That’s grade level 6 — again, lower middle school — even though this one fails to limit each sentence to one subject and one verb.
But what about storytelling?
It’s trendy right now to name-check “storytelling” for all types of mass communication without fully understanding or defining what’s meant.
What’s covered in past weeks are elements of storytelling. If you employ empathy with your true audience (the public, not clients or primes) and its lived experience, consider your point of view and keep your language simple and vivid, you’re using some of the most effective elements of storytelling — which serves an audience rather than a wonky, geeky fixation on objects or processes. Skilled public-facing writers have been doing this since long before “storytelling” shot up the Buzzword Bingo list.
Would it serve your audience to add more overt storytelling traits — a protagonist who journeys or transforms in some way; an antagonist or foil; a buildup, climax and resolution; themes of person against other person or nature or self; repetition/refrain, call and response, etc.?
Or maybe a documentary or news-feature narrative implying that a client, through its paid vendor, can somehow objectively tell the “real” or “inside” story about itself?
Maybe once in a while. But mostly it would seem contrived and tedious — and likely frustrating for your busy audience, who might really just want to know how a project will affect their daily routine. Know your place with your audience (the public, not clients and primes): When your grandma wants entertainment or validation or spiritual uplift, she won’t be turning to your local government project.
Remember the stakes
The premise is that plain language helps out your grandma, our proxy for equity and inclusion traits. But plain language also helps out people whose only hindrance is multitasking because of demands on their time.
Maybe plain language even reduces eventual legal vulnerability for public entities that ostensibly must comply with standards about communication access (including Washington’s, Oregon’s and California’s, and federal ADA Section 508). The bacon you save may turn out to be your own.
Next time: structures and shapes
Writing isn’t just text. It has visible shapes and underlying structures. They help guide your grandma and other human readers, but they also appeal to unseen machine readers that influence whether your public-facing project writing will even reach your audience. It’s high time to expose them and master them.
Refer — and win back time
When you use the referral link below, or the “Share” button on any post, you'll get credit for any new subscribers. Send the link in a text or email, or share it on social media.
When someone uses your referral link to subscribe, you’ll get a reward:
One page of plain-language editing for one referral.
Two pages of plain-language editing for your second referral.
Three glorious pages of plain-language editing for your third referral.
Tell your wonks and geeks to do their worst, then send me what they inflict. I’ll dial it in for your public audience, with tracked changes and comments in a Google Doc or in Microsoft Word. Could help you ditch the desk for happy hour or soccer practice just a little earlier.