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Plain English

Table of Contents

  1. So what's plain English?
  2. Keep your sentences short
  3. Prefer active verbs
  4. Use 'you' and 'we'
  5. Choose words appropriate for the reader
  6. Don't be afraid to give instructions
  7. Avoid nominalisations
  8. Use positive language
  9. Use lists where appropriate
  10. Apologising
  11. Myths
  12. Summary
  13. Words to avoid

So what's plain English?

First let's say what plain English isn't and destroy some of the myths about it.

Sadly, thanks to the bureaucrats of public service industries, local councils, banks, building societies, insurance companies and government departments, we have learned to accept an official style of writing that is inefficient and often unfriendly.

But in the last few years, many of these offenders have started to put things right, either rewriting their documents clearly or training their staff in the art of plain English or both.

The main advantages of plain English are:

If you spend more than an hour a day writing, you are to an extent a professional writer. So it's vital that you get it right.

So what is plain English? It is a message, written with the reader in mind and with the right tone, that is clear and concise.

Keep your sentences short

Most experts would agree that clear writing should have an average sentence length of 15 to 20 words.

This does not mean making every sentence the same length. Be punchy. Vary your writing by mixing short sentences (like the last one) with longer ones (like this one), following the basic principle of sticking to one main idea in a sentence, plus perhaps one other related point. You should soon be able to keep to the average sentence length - used by top journalists and authors - quite easily.

However, at first you may still find yourself writing the odd long sentence, especially when trying to explain a complicated point. But most long sentences can be broken up in some way.

Prefer active verbs

Do you want your letters to sound active or passive - crisp and professional or stuffy and bureaucratic?

To explain the difference between active and passive verbs, we need to look briefly at how a sentence fits together. Almost every sentence has three important parts.

To give an example, in the sentence 'Peter watched the television':

Of course, there will usually be lots of other words as well. For example: 'Peter, the boy from number 13, watched the television every Friday night'. But the agent, verb and object are still there.

With an active verb, the three parts appear in a particular order: agent then verb then object. For example:

Peter (agent) watched (verb) the television (object).

'Watched' is an active verb here. The sentence says who is doing the watching before it says what is being watched.

With a passive verb, the order is reversed: object then verb then agent.

The television (object) was watched (verb) by Peter (agent).

'Watched' is a passive verb here. The sentence says what is being watched before it says who is doing the watching.

You can see that by making the sentence passive, we have had to introduce the words 'was' and 'by', and the sentence becomes more clumsy.

Remember that the agent is not always a person and the object is not always a thing! 'The tree crushed Peter' is active but 'Peter was crushed by the tree' is passive.

Here are some more examples of how to turn a passive verb into an active verb.

This matter will be considered by us shortly. (Passive)

  • We will consider this matter shortly. (Active)

    • The riot was stopped by the police. (Passive)

  • The police stopped the riot. (Active)

    • The mine had to be closed by the authority. (Passive)

  • The authority had to close the mine. (Active)

    • Passive verbs cause several problems:

    Good uses of passives

    There are times of course when you should use a passive.

    But aim to make about 80 to 90% of your verbs active.

    This difference between active and passive verbs is not easy to grasp. Some people never really get it. So if you are any way confused, read this section again.

    Use 'you' and 'we'

    Try to call the reader 'you', even if the reader is only one of many people you are talking about generally. If this feels wrong at first, remember that you wouldn't use words like 'the applicant' and 'the supplier' if you were speaking to somebody sitting across a desk from you.

    Here are some examples of this.

    Applicants must send us...

    We always tell customers before we...

    Advice is available from...

    Similarly, always call your organisation 'we'. And there is nothing wrong with using 'we' and 'I' in the same letter.

    Use words appropriate for the reader

    When you are talking to your reader, say exactly what you mean, using the simplest words that fit. This does not necessarily mean only using simple words - just words that the reader will understand.

    At the end of the course is a list of a few of the words that we suggest you avoid. But for most words you will have to decide yourself whether they are suitable.

    Jargon is a type of language that is only understood by a particular group of people, such as an industry or a club. You can use jargon when writing to people who will understand the terms and phrases; it can be a useful form of shorthand. But try to avoid using specialist jargon on the general public.

    So in general, keep to everyday English whenever possible. And again, imagine talking to your reader across a table.

    Don't be afraid to give instructions

    Sit!

    Brush your teeth.

    Please send it to me.

    These are all commands - officially called imperatives. They are the fastest and most direct way of giving someone instructions.

    However, if we asked a hardened bureaucrat to write these expressions, we would end up with something like this:

    Dogs are advised that they should sit down.

    Your teeth should be brushed.

    I should be grateful if you would send it to me.

    There always seems to be a fear of commands. The most common fault is putting 'customers should do this' or 'you should do this' instead of just 'do this'. Perhaps people worry that commands sound too harsh. But you can often solve this by putting the word 'please' in front.

    Here are some examples of long-winded phrases and shorter versions that use commands.

    You should just think of it as a complete statement.

    Writers should aim to be punchy.

    They should be split where suitable.

    The last example is probably the worst because it uses a passive verb - 'should be split'. Unfortunately this is very common in instructions. For example:

    The packet should be removed from the box. The contents should then be placed in the oven.

    Avoid nominalisations

    A nominalisation is a type of abstract noun. (Is that plain English?) In other words, it is the name of something that isn't a physical object but a process, technique or emotion.

    Nominalisations are formed from verbs.

    For example:

    Verb
    Nominalisation
    complete completion
    introduce introduction
    provide provision
    fail failure
    arrange arrangement
    investigate investigation

    So what's wrong with them?

    The problem is that often they are used instead of the verbs they come from. And because they are merely the names of things, they sound as if nothing is actually happening in the sentence. Like passive verbs, too many of them make writing very dull and heavy-going.

    Here are some examples.

    We had a discussion about the matter.

    There will be a stoppage of trains by drivers.

    The implementation of the method has been done by a team.

    Use positive language

    Always try to emphasise the positive side of things.

    For example:

    If you don't send your payment, we won't be able to renew your membership of the scheme. (Negative)

    Use lists where appropriate

    Lists are excellent for splitting information up.

    There are two main types of list.

    In the list above, each of the points is fairly long (in fact, they are both complete sentences) so they each start with a capital letter and end with a full stop.

    For the same type of list with short points, it is better to set it out like this.

    Kevin needed to take

    With a list that is part of a continuous sentence, put semicolons (;) after each point and start each with a lower-case letter.

    If you can prove that:

    you should be all right.

    As you can see, the next to last point has 'and' after the semicolon. If you only had to prove one of the three points instead of all of them, this word would be 'or'.

    Always make sure each point follows logically and grammatically from the introduction. For example, if you took out 'you' from the second and third points it would still flow as a normal sentence but not as a list. The third point would then read, 'If you can prove that are over 21', which obviously does not make sense.

    We have also used bullet points for each listed point. These are better than numbers or letters as they draw your attention to each point without giving you extra information to take in.

    Apologising

    If you are replying to a tricky letter, with a complaint or a difficult problem, put yourself in the reader's shoes. Be professional, not emotional. You may have to give a firm, unwelcome answer, but be as helpful and polite as possible. If you are going to apologise, do so early.

    If the problem is your fault, say so. Apologise completely but concisely, sympathetically but sincerely. And whether it is your fault or not, try to emphasise what you can do for the other person.

    Myths

    We're not trying to be trendy here by breaking some of the grammatical rules. We're just going to destroy some of the grammatical myths.

    Of course, this does not mean you should break these so-called rules all the time - just when they make a sentence flow better.

    Summary

    And always check that your writing is clear, helpful, human and polite.

    Words to avoid

    Try to use the alternatives we suggest in brackets.

    These are just a few suggestions. We have a much more comprehensive A-Z available.

    Training from Plain English Campaign

    We offer training courses to teach you how to design and write your documents in plain English. We run two types of course:

    You can also follow our Plain English Diploma Course. This is a 12-month course, leading to a qualification in plain English.

    We now offer two courses teaching English grammar. Our Grammarcheck Course is designed to teach delegates the fundamentals of grammar, punctuation, sentence construction and spelling which are so essential for clear communication. We also occasionally hold an Advanced Grammar Course, which goes into more detail on the grammar of standard English.

    You may also be interested in The Plain English Course - our pack of materials to help you train your own staff.

    For more details on any of the courses, please click on the links throughout this page or use the menu at the top. If you have any specific questions about training courses, please call our training manager Helen Mayo on 01663 744409 or e-mail us.

    Copyright

    Plain English Campaign owns the copyright to this guide. You are welcome to print out any of the guides or save them to disk for your own use. You may not photocopy any guide or pass on electronic copies without permission.

    This page was last updated on August 9, 2004.

    Plain_English (last edited 2012-04-09 03:06:19 by Chris)