Writing Matters

Archived webinar: Listen to or download my "Update on Plain Writing Principles and the New Law"

Earlier this year, I delivered a 90-minute webinar for Web Manager University entitled Write Plainly: An Update on Plain Writing Principles and the New Law. During the webinar, I discussed plain writing principles, and Kathryn Catania, PLAIN co-chair, presented information on the Plain Writing Act of 2010.

During the webinar, we covered:

• The principles of plain language
• How to edit content according to plain language principles
• Where to find additional plain language training and resources
• How the Plain Writing Act could affect government agencies' operations

Now, you can download the webinar recording (66 MB, 90 minutes) and the presentation slides (PDF, 3 MB).

If you want to laugh yourself silly, download the transcript (PDF, 40 KB), which documents me saying things like "I think is an idiot for FAQs as part of the culture of the Web" and "Not really, but it do go to play my wish..."  Ah, you gotta love digital transcription technology!

E-mails about the Epsilon security breach: Marriott got it wrong, but Target and Hilton got it right

A couple of days ago, hackers stole data (customers' names and e-mails) from Epsilon, a company that manages e-mail marketing campaigns for some of the nation's biggest retailers. (Read the WSJ article "Breach Brings Scrutiny.") I must be a downstream customer of Epsilon's because within a day of the breach I had received explanation e-mails from Marriott, Target, and Hilton. (Scroll to the bottom to read the three e-mails.) Overall, Marriott's was the least effective. After a close read of these three samples, I've come up with some advice.

Four tips for writing e-mail that explains a security breach ...  or other bad news

1. Write a clear subject line. Target and Hilton used the same subject line: Important message from [Target, Hilton HHonors]. Marriott used Important Notice from Marriott International, Inc. These subject lines are truly inadequate and likely to get lost in my inbox. And they do nothing to offset the torrent of phone calls each company's contact center must have received from nervous customers. Even Explanation of Recent Security Breach would have been a better subject line.
   
2. Use a specific greeting. Marriott got this right. But Target addressed me as a valued guest. I have never understood this euphemism for customer. Yes, one treats guests nicely, but one doesn't usually try to sell them things or protect their e-mail addresses. And Hilton's Dear Customer greeting is just blah. It's anonymous.
3. Explain what the customer should do. Marriott's advice is weak: continue to be on alert. Marriott does nothing to help customers gauge the severity of the breach or to take steps to protect themselves. In contrast, Target and Hilton give bulleted, specific instructions.
4. Sign the e-mail. When your customers become concerned about their personal data, it's time to bring in the big guns. Marriott blundered again. Their e-mail isn't even "signed" with a person's title, such as Marketing Director or Customer Service Manager. Hilton's and Target's VPs took personal responsibility in their company's e-mails.

On a related topic, Epsilon's news release on the breach -- "Epsilon Notifies Clients of Unauthorized Entry into Email System" -- is pure blunder. The worst thing a company can do when something bad has happened is use language that hides ownership. Plain language is a must. If ever Epsilon should have chosen active voice, this would be the time. But Epsilon's news release is full of the company's hysteria-induced use of passive voice: "On March 30th, an incident was detected where a subset of Epsilon clients' customer data were exposed by an unauthorized entry into Epsilon's email system." Who detected? Who exposed?

********************************************************

Marriott's E-Mail

Dear Marriott Customer,

We were recently notified by Epsilon, a marketing vendor used by Marriott International, Inc. to manage customer emails, that an unauthorized third party gained access to a number of Epsilon's accounts including Marriott's email list.

In all likelihood, this will not impact you. However, we recommend that you continue to be on the alert for spam emails requesting personal or sensitive information. Please understand and be assured that Marriott does not send emails requesting customers to verify personal information.

We take your privacy very seriously. Marriott has a long-standing commitment to protecting the privacy of the personal information that our guests entrust to us. We regret this has taken place and apologize for any inconvenience.

Please visit our FAQ to learn more.

Sincerely,

Marriott International, Inc.

********************************************************

Target's E-Mail

To our valued guests,  
 
Target’s email service provider, Epsilon, recently informed us that their data system was exposed to unauthorized entry. As a result, your email address may have been accessed by an unauthorized party. Epsilon took immediate action to close the vulnerability and notified law enforcement.

While no personally identifiable information, such as names and credit card information, was involved, we felt it was important to let you know that your email may have been compromised. Target would never ask for personal or financial information through email.

Consider these tips to help protect your personal information online:

• Don’t provide sensitive information through email. Regular email is not a secure method to transmit personal information.
• Don’t provide sensitive information outside of a secure website. Legitimate companies will not attempt to collect personal information outside a secure website. If you are concerned, contact the organization represented in the email. 
• Don’t open emails from senders you don’t know.

We sincerely regret that this incident occurred. Target takes information protection very seriously and will continue to work to ensure that all appropriate measures are taken to protect personal information. Please contact [email protected] should you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,

Bonnie Gross
Vice President, Marketing and Guest Engagement

********************************************************

Hilton's E-Mail

Dear Customer:

We were notified by our database marketing vendor, Epsilon, that we are among a group of companies affected by a data breach. How will this affect you? The company was advised by Epsilon that the files accessed did not include any customer financial information, and Epsilon has stressed that the only information accessed was names and e-mail addresses. The most likely impact, if any, would be receipt of unwanted e-mails. We are not aware at this time of any unsolicited e-mails (spam) that are related, but as a precaution, we want to remind you of a couple of tips that should always be followed:

• Do not open e-mails from senders you do not know
• Do not share personal information via e-mail

Hilton Worldwide, its brands and loyalty program will never ask you to e-mail personal information such as credit card numbers or social security numbers. You should be cautious of "phishing" e-mails, where the sender tries to trick the recipient into disclosing confidential or personal information. If you receive such a request, it did not come from Hilton Worldwide, its brands or its loyalty program. If you receive this type of request you should not respond to it but rather notify us at [email protected]

As always, we greatly value your business and loyalty, and take this matter very seriously. Data privacy is a critical focus for us, and we will continue to work to ensure that all appropriate measures are taken to protect your personal information from unauthorized access.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Diskin
Senior Vice President, Customer Marketing
Hilton Worldwide

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Editor reports results of jargon survey: Staff is iffy on some agency terms

For this post, I am glad to welcome guest blogger Sarah Shepard, Senior Engineering Research Editor for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). You may remember Sarah; I blogged about her a few weeks ago. She's the plain language advocate who came up with the best strategy ever for showing her colleagues that DEC's jargon compromises clarity. Sarah tested DEC's jargon on DEC itself. Read the original post here: Editor surveys staff to see whether they understand their own jargon.

I asked Sarah to get in touch when the survey was complete, and here's what she has to say:

"Results from the DEC jargon survey are in and I am surprised. The response was huge. Almost 30% of the 3,000 people in our agency responded. As surveys poured in, I realized people were motivated by more than the desire to win the pizza we’d offered.  Why did so many take the survey? On my good days, I think the survey resonated with those who are frustrated with how we communicate with the public. On my not-so-good days, I think some people completed it to protect their own jargon.

They claimed to know lots of terms
I was surprised that 80% of DEC knew what brownfield, consent order, and aquifer meant. Really?  We'll never know for sure because we didn’t ask people to define the words they claimed to know. Take the term angler days, for example. Within our Plain Language group, some thought it meant the days you could fish for free. Others thought it was the length of the fishing season. Neither is correct, but everyone thought they knew what the term meant, so highly confident responses on the survey have to be viewed with some skepticism.

They admitted to being iffy on some terms
In contrast, the data from the “I’m not familiar with this word” and “I’ve heard it, but I don’t know what it means” categories was clear. Less than half of our staff knows what anadromous means. Ditto for viewshed and down wood. Climate change lingo -- carbon sequestration, low-carbon economy, and green-collar workforce -- was equally unfamiliar. Despite confusion about these terms, the survey showed our staff is in command of much of our jargon, although reluctant to label it as such. “Ruminant is not jargon,” I was told, but a “legitimate scientific term that everyone should know.”

We surveyed the public and they were stumped too
Curious about which terms the public did know, I opened the survey to them. Well, not exactly the true public, but family and friends of DEC staff. As expected, the public was even more unfamiliar with the terms that stumped us.  But there were a few surprises. Seventy-one percent of our slice of the public thought they knew what riparian meant. An even higher percentage said they knew the meaning of non-point source and biosolid. Could this be? Even if it’s true, that still means about 30% of those outside DEC don’t understand these words. That’s a lot of people. We need to be careful where we use such words. 

If you want more detail about survey results, scroll to the bottom of this post.

Thanks for your interest in DEC's jargon survey
Our jargon is just the tip of our non-plain language iceberg. The heavy lift will be taming the use of  wordy, inflated language. We have been known to write shoreline recreation amenity when we mean beach. More (and more carefully designed) surveys are planned, in which we'll test selected words on targeted audiences. I’m happy to share the results of this jargon survey with anyone interested, including those of you who have already contacted me to express your (much appreciated) support. E-mail me. Let's keep in touch!"

Survey participation

• Total number of DEC staff who took survey: 894 (out of 3008)
• Total number of public who took survey: 413

Survey options

• Not familiar = I’m not familiar with this word
• Seen/heard = I’ve seen/heard this word but I don’t know what it means
• Unsure = I think I know what this means, but I’m not sure
• Know = I know the meaning of this word

Least familiar scientific jargon: anadr0mous       

• Not familiar: 43.8% (DEC); 53.8% (Public)
• Seen/heard: 10.5% (DEC); 10.9% (Public)

Least familiar regulatory jargon: attainment area 

• Not familiar: 25.5% (DEC); 30.5% (Public)
• Seen/heard: 14.8% (DEC); 16.2% (Public)

Most familiar jargon: invasive species

• Know: 95.4% (DEC); 93.9% (Public)    

Largest difference in familiarity between DEC and public: non-point source

• Not-familiar: 8.4% (DEC); 20.6% (Public)
• Seen/heard: 4.1% (DEC); 6.5% (Public)

Shouldn’t everyone at DEC know the term environmental stewardship?

• Not familiar: 2.8% (DEC); 3.9 % (Public) 
• Seen/heard: 4.3% (DEC); 3.6% (Public)
• Unsure: 15.1% (DEC); 16.5% (Public)

The public understands  some terms better than DEC does

• Know the meaning of  low-carbon economy: 35.2% (DEC); 45.3% (Public)
• Know the meaning of green-collar workforce: 38.9% (DEC); 44.6% (Public)

Update: Federal Plain Language Guidelines - March 2011

Many thanks to the folks at PlainLanguage.gov who have just updated their Federal Plain Language Guidelines and published them at their site. I'm so excited about this wonderful resource that I'm presenting the entire Table of Contents here so you can easily click through. You can also download the Guidelines (PDF). I hope you'll use these Guidelines to nurture clear writing in your organization or to help you develop a style guide of your own.

Federal Plain Language Guidelines

Introduction

1. Think about your audience
   1. Identify and write for your audience
   2. Address separate audiences separately
2. Organize
   1. Organize to meet your readers' needs
   2. Address one person, not a group
   3. Use lots of useful headings
   4. Write short sections
3. Write your document
   1. Words
      1. Verbs
         1. Use active voice
         2. Use the simplest form of a verb
         3. Avoid hidden verbs
         4. Use "must" to indicate requirements
         5. Use contractions when appropriate
      2. Nouns and pronouns
         1. Don't turn verbs into nouns
         2. Use pronouns to speak directly to readers
         3. Minimize abbreviations
      3. Other word issues
         1. Use short, simple words
         2. Omit unnecessary words
         3. Dealing with definitions
         4. Use the same term consistently for a specific thought or object
         5. Avoid legal, foreign, and technical jargon
         6. Don't use slashes
   2. Sentences
      1. Write short sentences
      2. Keep subject, verb, and object close together
      3. Avoid double negatives and exceptions to exceptions
      4. Place the main idea before exceptions and conditions
      5. Place words carefully
   3. Paragraphs
      1. Have a topic sentence
      2. Use transition words
      3. Write short paragraphs
      4. Cover only one topic in each paragraph
   4. Other aids to clarity
      1. Use examples
      2. Use lists
      3. Use tables to make complex material easier to understand
      4. Consider using illustrations
      5. Use emphasis to highlight important concepts
      6. Minimize cross-references
      7. Design your document for easy reading
4. Write for the web
   1. How do people use the web?
   2. Write for your users
   3. Identify your users and their top tasks
   4. Write web content
   5. Repurpose print material for the web
   6. Avoid PDF overload
   7. Use plain-language techniques on the web
   8. Avoid meaningless formal language
   9. Write effective links
5. Test
   1. Paraphrase Testing
   2. Usability Testing
   3. Controlled Comparative Studies
   4. Testing Successes
      1. Paraphrase Testing from the Veterans Benefits Administration
      2. Usability Testing from the National Cancer Institute

Editor surveys staff to see whether they understand their own jargon

If you're a web writer, an editor, or a plain language advocate, you've probably encountered this frustrating situation frequently. You're editing a web page or document, and it's loaded with jargon. You flag the terms you know readers won't understand and ask the authors to provide plain language substitutes. "Why simplify?" the subject matter experts ask.  "Everyone knows what that term means."

Sarah Shepard, Senior Engineering Research Editor for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), may have come up with the best strategy ever for showing her colleagues that jargon can compromise clarity. She's intent on gathering quantitative data that will show that, in fact, not "everyone" gets DEC's jargon. Sarah is testing DEC's jargon on DEC itself.

Here's how she's doing it. Sarah (and the wordsmiths in the Division of Public Affairs and Education plus other DEC divisions) read through lots of DEC documents and content to identify jargon they're pretty sure many readers don't understand. They came up with hundreds of terms --riparian, mitigation, effluent, appropriation authority -- then whittled the list down to the top 50. Then Sarah set up an anonymous online survey that asks DEC employees to choose the response that best represents their familiarity with each DEC jargon words or phrase:

• I'm not familiar with this word
• I've seen/heard this word, but don't know what it means
• I think I know what this means, but I'm not sure
• I know the meaning of this word

That's right. It's a brilliant strategy. Sarah is asking her colleagues "Do we even understand each other? Because if we don’t get it, our readers -- citizens -- probably don't get it either."

So far, Sarah is pleased and surprised by how many people have responded to the survey, which has been open for only 5 days and already has 521 respondents. (DEC has 2800 employees, so the survey's closing in on a 20% response rate!) And leading the survey as the three least familiar jargon terms: anadromous, down wood, and viewshed.  (Could someone pass me a dictionary?)

Many thanks to Sarah for letting me interview her about the DEC jargon survey. I'm looking forward to sharing the survey results, and Sarah's reflections on the survey's outcomes, at the end of this month or the beginning of March.

If you have questions about the jargon survey or DEC's plain language initiative, e-mail Sarah who told me, "I love connecting w/other Plain Language fans."

Join me for a Plain Language Webinar on January 21

On January 21 at 1 p.m. EST, I'll be presenting a webinar for Web Manager University: " Write Plainly: An Update on Plain Writing Principles and the New Law." Though targeted to the federal community, this 90-minute webinar will be useful for anyone who wants to learn about writing in plain language.

Webinar Description
With the Plain Writing Act in place, 2011 will be the year of plain language. Kick off the new year with this introduction to plain language writing principles and practice.  In this webinar, you'll learn why writing in plain language does not mean “dumbing down” your content. You'll analyze before-and-after examples of federal web content written in plain language. You'll receive pre-course writing samples to review then we'll apply plain language principles to these samples during the webinar.

What You Will Learn

• The principles of plain language
• How to edit content according to plain language principles
• Where to find additional plain language training and resources
• How the Plain Writing Act could affect your agency’s operations

I hope you'll join me on January 21!

-- Leslie O'Flahavan

Plain Language Writing Workshop - Six Strategies for Cleaning the Clutter From Your Writing: December 8, 2010

In honor of the Plain Writing Act of 2010, we are offering a practical, hands-on, half-day workshop on strategies for writing in plain language. Register now to join us for this workshop on December 8, 2010 in Silver Spring, Maryland. In this workshop, you'll learn how to use clear, accurate wording that will help your reader do what you ask and understand what you mean. Spend an afternoon brushing up your own writing skills and learn how to improve the documents you edit for others.

You will learn:

• How to tailor your writing to your readers' needs
• A two-tier process for editing for conciseness
• How to make your writing scannable
• How, and when, to display information in vertical lists or tables
• How to cut word count by 10 percent, 25 percent, or even 50 percent
• How, and why, to write in active voice

You should attend this workshop if you:

• Value clarity in written communication
• Need to improve your writing skills
• Want to be able to explain to colleagues why their writing needs to be edited
• Are interested in how the Plain Writing Act of 2010 will affect writing in the government and beyond

You will receive:

• A notebook containing course exercises and resources
• Before-and-after examples that show the power of a plain language rewrite
• A plain language resource list

Contact me at 301-989-9583 or [email protected] for more information or to learn about a tuition discount for enrolling three or more people from your organization.

-- Leslie O'Flahavan

Awesome Download: Toolkit for Making Written Material Clear and Effective

Government communicators have produced something wonderful, again. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just published an 11-chapter downloadable Toolkit for Making Written Material Clear and Effective:

"The Toolkit includes detailed guidelines for writing, graphic design, and culturally appropriate translation from English into other languages.  It includes a book-length guide to methods of testing written material with readers, and covers special topics in writing and design.  These special topics include cautions about using readability formulas to assess material, things to know if your material is for older adults, a comparison of written material on websites versus written material in printed formats, and an extended “before and after” example of using the Toolkit guidelines to revise a brochure."

I really liked:

• Part 2: Using a reader-centered approach. "Remember that you are writing for your readers, not yourself."
• Part 7: Using readability formulas. "Readability formulas ignore most factors that contribute to ease of reading and comprehension."

Take a look and let me know what you think and how you might use this Toolkit.

-- Leslie O'Flahavan

Plain Language Act: An Announcement or a Send-up?

It's good to know the folks at FedWeek have a sense of humor, even about plain language. Here's their tongue-in-cheek announcement about the Plain Writing Act of 2010, signed into law by President Obama on October 13, 2010:

Plain Language Act Signed

"President Obama has signed into law (P.L. 111-274) legislation requiring agencies to use plain language in documents directed toward the public and to train employees in clear writing—for example, writing that does not utilize abstruse verbiage rather than use plain words, nor is redundant by making a point more than once (that is, twice or more), nor contains sentences that keep going even when the point at which they should have stopped arrived far before the period, with period in this case referring to a punctuation mark, rather than a measure of time, such as the time it takes to read writing full of unnecessary dependent clauses, sometimes known as subordinate clauses, that make it difficult for the reader to recall the subject by the end of the predicate, and that would not pass the law's standards."

Other joyful announcements of the Plain Writing Act:

• ABC News reports "Obama Signs Law We Can All Understand"
• The Center for Plain Language announces "President Obama Has Signed the Plain Writing of Act of 2010"

Yes, the government went and made writing well a law. This is going to be very good for readers!

-- Leslie O'Flahavan

Does Passive Voice Mean a Passive President?

Poor President Obama. Besieged from the right and the left on Afghanistan, Iran, the economy, not to mention the oil disaster in the Gulf. He's accused of being too cerebral (No drama Obama) and of being too belligerent ("know whose ass to kick").  Now he is under attack from the Word Police. 

The Global Language Monitor (GLM) dissected his Oval Office address on the oil spill and found him rhetorically deficient. Among his sins: overusing the passive voice, writing overly long sentences, and writing at too high a grade level. 

But is he guilty of those sins? And do they matter? Or do clarity and message trump sentence structure and grade level?

Does Passive Voice Mean a Passive President?

According to GLM, 13 percent of Obama's speech was written in the passive voice, the highest percentage of any presidential address this century. Politically speaking, the passive voice is used to obscure the doer of the action. The most famous passive voice sentence in politics is President Nixon's "Mistakes were made." He said that in taking "responsibility" for Watergate.

If 13 percent of Obama's speech was written in the passive voice, then 87 percent was written in the active voice. As a writing instructor, I've taught that good writers vary sentence construction. And it didn't seem like he used the passive voice to deflect blame. In well-constructed active voice sentences, he clearly identified those responsible for the spill: "But make no mistake: We will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long it takes. We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused."

His passive voice constructions seemed appropriate: "Over 5.5 million feet of boom has been laid across the water to block and absorb the approaching oil." Using the passive voice here puts the focus on the action (laying the boom) as opposed to the doer (Coast Guard, BP).  

Does Long Make it Wrong?

Obama's sentences averaged about 20 words in length, considered kosher if well crafted: "We consume more than 20 percent of the world's oil reserves but have less than 2 percent of the world's oil reserves."

True, Obama lost points for this 39-word mouthful. But that's because of the ten-word tag he appends to any mention of Chu: "That's why, just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation's best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge, a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation's secretary of energy."

On the whole, Obama varied the sentence length--not too many short sentences that can sound choppy, if not boring. Rather, he used short sentences powerfully: "And the region still hasn't recovered from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That's why we must make a commitment to the Gulf Coast that goes beyond responding to the crisis of the moment. I make that commitment tonight."

Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

Using a variant of the Flesch Test , which analyzes reading level, GLM determined that Obama's oil spill speech was written at the 9.8 grade level. How does that compare to other presidents? Reagan's "Tear Down this Wall" speech earned a 9.8 grade level. Kennedy's inaugural address was 10.9. George W. Bush generally gave speeches at the 7th grade level. This hardly makes a case for lower grade level being better. Exactly what grade level is "They misunderestimated me"?

So, is Obama guilty of crimes against the English language? Ron Yaros, assistant professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, pooh-poohed GLC's analysis of the Oval Office address. What's important, stressed Yaros, is clarity: “It was straightforward and easy to understand.” 

--Marilynne Rudick