Speak to me plainly, please

On Monday I conducted a webinar on plain language. Any time I talk about plain language to people unfamiliar with it, I tell them why plain language is not about dumbing information down.

Most people think it is.

Think about it this way: A highly trained physician has a computer issue.  He calls the computer doctor to explain what’s going on and the computer doc replies in geek speak. This is exactly what the medical doc’s patients encounter when they try to understand what’s going on with their health issue.

The physician needs and wants to understand his computer issue, but since he doesn’t know geek speak, he needs the information explained to him in plain language void of jargon. Not dumbed down, just explained in clear and concise language so he can understand what it is he needs to know to use his computer.

Granted, most of us whether we’re physicians or not will turn the problem over to the computer doc and go do something else. Just fix it, please.

But we can’t do that with our health. We need to know what we need to know to get healthy and stay healthy. Understanding the underlying issues can make a big difference in how we live our lives and how long we live.

Understanding the underlying computer issues can help us forecast our computer’s lifespan and budget for it’s replacement.

Either way, plain language matters to all of us.

South Africa stamps documents easy to read

There’s more to writing in plain language than using simple words, short sentences, and short paragraphs. It’s a complicated process that takes a long time to learn and a great deal of practice. Dare I say years?

Simplified, a plain language company in South Africa, awards certification to documents that meet that country’s plain language laws.

The U.S. plain language law just went into effect two weeks ago. With time, many of us practitioners hope lots of corporations and organizations will embrace plain language and launch initiatives to produce easy-to-read and understand emails, websites, reports, brochures, etc. It’s the right thing to do. It saves readers time, money, and the agony of wading through complicated language.

Say what?

The Plain Language Writing Act of 2010 went into effect October 13, 2011. My wish is that with time, we will see far fewer sentences like the one below. And yes, it is one sentence!

“To the extent reasonable and consistent with the goals of providing easily understandable and readable materials and complying with federal and state laws governing the programs, all written materials relating to services and determinations of eligibility for or amounts of benefits that will be given to applicants for or recipients of assistance under a program administered or supervised by the commissioner of employment and economic development must be understandable to a person of average intelligence and education.”

Here’s to a future of no gobbledygook!

Plain language: It’s (almost) the law!

The Plain Writing Act of 2010 takes effect October 13. What this means is that all federal agencies will be required to write all information meant for the public in plain language.

Plain language advocates around the world are celebrating this law. And thanks to Cheryl Stephens, who is a plain language advocate and practitioner and has spearheaded the movement to designate October 13 as Plain Language International Day, there are lots of events scheduled that day to celebrate this law’s passage and enactment.

If you’re not familiar with plain language, there are many great resources such as Plain Language Association International (PLAIN), Plain Language.gov, and the Center for Plain Language. They are a great place to start exploring what it is and how to use it.

Everyone benefits from plain language. It’s not only a civil right, it will soon be the law.

Funny thing happened on way to the forum….

On a listserve today, I misinterpreted a poster’s use of the phrase “at arm’s length.” She was using the phrase to describe how as a consultant, she brings a fresh view to her clients’ table because she doesn’t work within the organization. I interpreted it to mean she was saying consultants can’t understand what goes on within a client’s organization because they don’t work within the organization.

As a plain language writer, I advise clients to be careful when using idioms because they can mean different things to different people, depending on their background, culture, and native language. But here’s a case of two people from the same culture deriving two separate meanings.

A perfectly innocent example of how words can influence. If this happened with health care instructions….

I’ve said it before, plain language saves lives.

Plain language ensures healthy, safe lives

A new article has just been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The title is Insurance Expansion and Health Literacy.

The authors, Lauri T. Martin, ScD, MPH and Ruth M. Parker, MD, talk about how over the next three years, over 30 million people are to be enrolled in publicly funded or subsidized health care plans. That is if they’re lucky.

Chances are many of these people have low literacy skills, and yet they will need to understand how to navigate the complicated health care system to enroll. This means enrollment goals will not likely be met, which will undermine the credibility and success of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Plus, the authors say, this will hinder the expansion of health insurance coverage and access to care for the people who need it most.

So what’s the solution? First, the federal and state governments need to make sure the information patients need to know is easy to access, easy to read, and easy to understand. So do the insurance companies.

I received a letter from my previous car insurance provider recently that was supposed to explain to the reader about underinsured and unknown motorist coverage. What a bunch of gobbledygook!

Here’s an excerpt:

“Specifically, if for any portion or all of the time period referenced above, your Uninsured and Unknown Motorists Coverage limits were less than your Liability Coverage limits, we will treat as reformed your Uninsured and Unknown Motorists Coverage limits for such applicable period to an amount equal to your then-applicable Liability Coverage limits.”

The language gets even more obtuse as the letter goes on. But who is most likely to have underinsured coverage? The low income and minority driver. And chances are pretty great that they won’t understand this. I mean, I’m well educated and I have a hard time unraveling what they’re saying. If I were underinsured, I’d want to understand the ramifications of my choice. This kind of letter is ridiculous and makes me furious! It’s created to confuse, and I know the writers who crafted this letter — the New Mexico Uninsured and Unknown Motorist Coverage review team — know better.

My point is that this letter is the very sort of “information” the average American can do without. The insurers need to learn how to write in plain language so their readers have the best opportunity to live healthy, safe lives. Plain language is for everyone, not just the low income and minority segment of the population.

I believe it is every person’s responsibility to communicate to others so we all have the chance to live healthy, productive, and safe lives. That is the American way.

6 Reasons to Use Plain Language

#1            People are more likely to follow instructions correctly.

Let’s face it. Time is money. Time is precious. With all the different kinds of social media like email, Twitter, Facebook, blogging, who has time to read through everything? I sure don’t, and I doubt you do either. So we have to choose, and when we make choices, we make them quickly. We decided while reading the headline in the newspaper or scanning the first paragraph whether we’ll keep reading or move on to the next headline. You have about 7 seconds to grab someone’s attention and hold it.

In other words…

Plain language that gets right to the point, grabs attention, and holds it.

#2            90 million Americans will appreciate it.

Bet you didn’t know that half of the adult population in this country reads at an 8^th grade level or less. If your audience includes most adults, keep this thought in mind when you write for them. You don’t want to miss the boat and lose customers you could wow and win over.

 In other words…

Know your audience well and make sure you write to their needs, not yours.

 #3            No one likes to decode.

Think about the last time you read a sentence or paragraph and had to read it several times before you understood what the writer was saying. Maybe the concept was complicated, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the point of the piece was buried under lots of unnecessary words and phrases. There are ways to explain difficult subjects so they can be more easily understood. Plain language is the key.

In other words…

If the subject you’re writing about is complicated, write it down as you understand it. Then step back from it and rewrite it as if you were explaining it to a novice. You’re not dumbing down the information, you’re simply making it easier to grasp. We all want that because who has time to decode?

# 4            You’ll reach a wider audience.

Who are your readers? Are they patients? Consumers? Educators? Corporate employees? Students? Neighbors? Politicians? Clerks? Doctors? Scientists? They probably aren’t all of the above, but they might be. If you’re writing information about Social Security, you can bet they are all of the above. If you’re writing about cancer treatment, you can bet they are all of the above. If you’re writing about molecular science, maybe your audience is a group of students, scientists, researchers, and science teachers who need to understand the information so they can explain it to their students. But consider this: You can be assured that some of your readers will not be native English speakers.

In other words….

Plain language is your key to making sure a wide variety of people can read and understand what you’ve written.

#5            Readers will love you for it.

Remember the last time you read something that was easy to understand? I have Comcast cable. Recently they gave customers a small box to install on our TVs so we could continue to get the channels we had been getting. I was impressed with the instructions. They were simple, had a very good graphics, and were logical. I brought the set-up home and left it on the table for several days before I got up the nerve to install it. I have a huge distaste for installing equipment, especially on the TV. But it was easy and all because of their instructions.

In other words….

You can keep customers by making hard things easy to understand. Comcast kept me as a customer because they made using their service a breeze for people like me who dislike dealing with this stuff.

#6            You can get your point across with precision.

Plain language is concise and direct. It drives your point home quickly and concisely. Patients will understand what they need to know to get better. Discharge instructions in plain language can prevent early returns to the hospital and can prevent patients from getting sicker because they didn’t understand the instructions. Ultimately, plain language saves lives.

In other words…

When you tell the reader what they need to know and nothing else, they are more likely to understand what you’ve written, and they’ll be able to follow your instructions.

What keeps your audience up at night?

Three years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer.Three weeks ago my oncologist feared I had leukemia from one of the chemotherapies I had had. Turns out I don’t. Whew! Tricked fate once again.

My doctors know what I do for a living, and they know that when I ask for an explanation, I want it in plain language. I want to know what I need to know so I can do what I need to do. They also know that when I get home, I’ll do a ton of research to get all the details I want. What I want from them is the main facts, what my next steps are, and the answers to my questions.

When I communicate with others, I try to remember to edit myself. Because I can be wordy and give more information than is needed. I make a conscious effort to tell the person(s) only what they need to know, but doing that requires I be aware of their needs before mine.

There’s a great story told in the book “Made to Stick.” If you haven’t read it, I recommend you do. It’s about “why some ideas thrive while others die, … and how we can improve the chances of worthy ideas” sticking. The authors, brothers Chip and Dan Heath, relate a story about a college journalism class assignment to write the lead for a high school paper story. They were given the facts: school administrators will attend a conference, who will be speaking, etc. The journalism students simply regurgitated the facts in their leads.

But all that would not have mattered to the high school students. What would have? That there would be no school that day!

Moral of this blog: Tell your audience what matters to them. Tell them what they need to know, not what you think they need to know. To do that, you need to know your audience inside and out — what they think, what they do, how they go about their days, where they buy their groceries, what kind of car they drive, what they do on their time off, what keeps them up at night (I like that one)… in other words, what’s most important to them in their lives.

Not easy to do, but you can get close by asking questions and doing research.

Thanks for listening.

Social media and plain language

I’ve been talking to fellow writers in the medical and science fields, and one subject many of us are exploring is social media. When I’m busy with work, I feel like I don’t have time to read blogs, tweets, and articles on interactive Web sites. But clearly this is the way the Internet is going. My question is who is going there with it? How much time can doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals spend blogging, tweeting, and updating their Facebook pages? I know of some medical practices that communicate with patients via email, but I have also heard some doctors express the concerns this raises, like confidentiality issues.

But, in the midst of questions about who’s using social media, I heard about a site that offers simple instructions in plain language for setting up a Facebook page, an email account, a blog, and a twitter account. It’s very cool. It’s designed to help the homeless be heard, and the name of the site is We Are Visible. Check it out. I’m impressed. http://wearevisible.com/index.html

Plain language coaching

This fall I began serving as a writing coach to nursing students who are getting their Ph.D. I’m loving this work. The students appreciate my help, and I really appreciate the opportunity to help them be better writers.

In fact, it’s taking my work as a plain language advocate to a new level.

My job as writing coach is to help them write scholarly papers while also being clear and concise. It is possible, you know. I also give them feedback about how to structure and organize their papers and help them define and explain their research so that their readers don’t have to wade through the unnecessary. At this stage, their primary reader is their professors, but many of these students hope to publish their work, and I am honored to be a part of that effort.

Plain language is about communicating clearly and ensuring understanding, whether the person being communicated to is a colleague, a fellow student, a patient, a patient’s family member, or any other member of a community.

We thrive and survive together when we express what matters most in a direct and simple way.