Edward Tufte: Books - Essay: The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint:
"Alas, slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis. What is the problem with PowerPoint? And how can we improve our presentations? "

SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Society Guardian | Bureaucratic jargon:
"To write effectively, we need to know three things: why we are writing it; what we want to happen as a result of our writing; and who we are writing for. If the target audience includes the public then this means using shorter sentences (average about 15-20 words), shorter words and avoiding jargon. So don't write in plain English henceforth - write in plain English from now on."

Plain Language Commission - site index

SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Society | English Kiss: Keep It Short and Simple

There is no shortage of helpful advice to authors. My book, The Plain English Guide (OUP, 1995) distils it into 20 guidelines. To summarise them:

· Use appropriate language - not too pompous, not too colloquial.

· Write sentences of reasonable length - 15-20 words on average.

· Favour active-voice verbs.

· Don't smother verbs beneath noun phrases: so 'We prepared...' not 'The preparation was undertaken by us...'

· Use personal reference words.

· Use a main heading. In long letters, use subheadings too.

· Use vertical lists to split up complex information.

· Use a top-heavy triangle structure, giving the big news early in each section. Alternatively, use chronological order if this will help the reader.

· Use tables, charts and graphs to help the reader understand.

· Reread your letter before it goes out. Revise it. Then revise it again. You don't have time, but you have to make it.

· If you've an important writing job to do, arrange your environment to suit you. This might mean booking a writing room in the office, or working at home.

Finally, remember the words of Lord Denning, the leading judge, in the 1980s: "It is better to be clear and brief than to go drivelling on."

· Martin Cutts is research director of Plain Language Commission

The Abbey National Group | Press Releases
Three quarters (74 per cent) of Britons believe that businesses deliberately use jargon to confuse and deceive consumers. More than half (56 per cent) think that jargon is used as a cover by people who don’t know what they’re talking about, yet nearly a third (31 per cent) admit to using it themselves to impress their own customers and clients, according to new research

Humorous Grammar Rules I

Communication Canada - Home Page

WWLIA - Plain Language

Hobbies: Writing - articles, hints, and tips for the freelancer and professional

Communication Canada - Successful Communication Tool Kit - Literacy and You

From Prof Joe Kimble's analysis of research _

Pay attention to document design — the typeface, length of line, white space, and so on.

Use short sections, or subdivide longer ones.

Use lots of headings. In public documents, try putting the main headings in the form of a question.

Group related ideas together, and order the parts in a logical sequence.

At the beginning of most documents, have an executive summary (for memos and judicial opinions) or a purpose statement (for legislation) or a table of contents (for manuals and long contracts).

Don't hesitate to use examples, tables, and charts.

Eliminate unnecessary words and details.

Break up long sentences.

Don't put too much information before or between the main subject, verb, and object.

Prefer the active voice.

Put the the central action in verbs, not in abstract nouns.

Use a vertical list — at the end of the sentence — for multiple conditions, consequences, or rules.

Try to address the reader as "you" in public documents.

Give shall the boot; use must instead.

Use familiar words — the ones that are simple and direct and human.

Impact Information: Your One-Stop Source for Plain Language Services:

Bill DuBay's Plain Language Services has a really neat resources/links page

Professional Editorial Standards

"ADOPTED by the association's membership in 1991 and revised in 1999, these Standards list the skills and knowledge needed for editing in English-language media in Canada. The full text of Professional Editorial Standards is reproduced below. Copyright © 1999 by the Editors' Association of Canada/Association canadienne des réviseurs. All rights reserved. "

Accelerated Reader ATOS Summary: "Guiding students to appropriate-level books is now much easier and more accurate than ever before, thanks to the ATOS Readability Formula for Books. ATOS eliminates many of the problems educators have always had with existing readability formulas. ATOS is the first formula to include statistics from actual student book-reading (over 30,000 students, reading almost 1,000,000 books), not just data based on short test passages."

Clear drafting in Sweden - a pdf file (4 pp)

In the very heart of the Swedish legislative process there are five linguists who encourage the government officials to use a plain language approach in their drafting.

Acts and ordinances, bills and commission reports must be clear and user-friendly. These texts have an impact on decision-making at all levels of society. A democracy must ensure openness and clarity within the public administration and guarantee that documents are
written in a way that meets the readers’ needs.

In addition to the linguists there is also a special committee in the Ministry of Justice, The Plain Swedish Group, which encourages Swedish authorities to start plain language projects.

The Plain Swedish Group

It is a legal requirement that the authorities must endeavour to express themselves in a way that is easy to understand. Clear and intelligible information promotes democracy, saves money and increases people’s confidence in the authorities.

Therefore, in 1993, the Swedish government set up the Plain Swedish Group in order to promote clear and simple language in official documents and to encourage government agencies all over Sweden to start plain language projects.

Plain English writing guide

From "the word centre" a commercial outfit based in Sheffield UK

Writing911.com

Through our Writing for the Real World Series, we give you the no-nonsense, easy-to-understand tips and tools you need to quickly improve the way you write at work.

Plain Language Australia

Plain language involves making sure that documents are written in the most direct and clear way so that readers can easily understand and use the information. It removes jargon and unnecessary official, legal or bureaucratic wording. It replaces lengthy, complex sentences with concise ones. It pays attention to design and layout of documents to make them as accessible as possible. Plain language is a vital tool for clear communication.

Universal Declaration of Human rights
UDHR: Plain Language Version

The Earth Summit's Agenda for Change
a plain language version

http://www.plainenglishwriting.com/

Mindfulness in plain english

www.onelook.com

a Dictionary portal

writing for results
- neat links page

US Govt site for plain language with good links
http://www.plainlanguage.gov/

A singular use of THEY - how to overcome the he and she problem

A plain language bookshelf

Saywhatyoumean.com | Ron Scheer, PhD -- content developer, information design advisor, plain language expert, Web writer, copy editor

Ananova - Clare Short's resignation letter praised by Plain English Campaign

Cheryl Stephens on Plain Language -- Plain Language Association International
good stuff - pkain and authoritative

Say What You Mean Report #19, 30 books of quotations and proverbs

Say What You Mean on the Web | Make yourself understood

ED284273 1987-00-00 The Plain English Movement. ERIC Digest.

"The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer."

George Orwell from "Politics and the English Language", about four pages from the end.

Common Talk
Sarah Margetts et al - breakaway e-group

Garbl's Guide to Concise Writing

Quotes about brevity in writing

Below the Beltway (washingtonpost.com)
about easy speak

HOW TO WRITE
By Flesch himself

Bretton Woods Project
World Bank speak

stylewriter
You can buy a programme to edit your text for all kinds of non plain writing problems. Even if you don't buy the programme it is useful to read about what it checks for!

Readability
A brief overview with some handy lists

Joe Kimble on Plain Language--The Plain Language Association International

Garbl's Writing Center
Gary B. Larson's portal to an editorial style manual, annotated directory of writing Web sites, concise writing guide, personalized advice and writing forum.
Neat.

A.Word.A.Day Home Page : vocabulary, wordpower, words, language, english, dictionary, lexicon, logophile, wordsmith

Guardian style guide
Comes in three versions. The downloads are quite large.

Egg-bound
Egg-bound by Mark Adler first published in Clarity 41 (April 1998)


Before:

If the rent hereby reserved or any part thereof shall be in arrear and unpaid for twenty-one days after becoming due and payable (whether formally demanded or not) or if there shall be any breach of any covenants or agreements on the part of the Lessee herein contained then and in any such case it shall be lawful for the Lessor at any time thereafter to re-enter upon the demised premises or any part thereof in the name of the whole and immediately thereupon this demise shall absolutely cease and determine but without prejudice to any right of action or remedy of the Lessor in respect of any antecedent breach of any covenant or agreement on the part of the Lessee herein contained


After:

The landlord may end the term by entering the property if:
(A) any rent is 21 days late (even if not formally demanded); or
(B) the tenant breaks any other obligation.

Articles and information on plain language

Rapport Communications - Design - Interactive Print Design
Sub-title - interactive design - bah humbug.
A fascinating tour round the theory of layout and design and its links to plain language.

President Roosevelt was not impressed with a memo informing him that 'Such preparations shall be made as will completely obscure all Federal and non-Federal buildings occupied by the Federal Government during an air raid for any period of time from visibility by reason of internal or external illumination. Such obscuration may be obtained either by black-out construction or by termination of the illumination.'

'Tell them,' Roosevelt told the writer, 'that in buildings where they have to keep the work going to put something over the windows; and, in buildings where they can let the work stop for a while, turn out the lights.'

Clear Language and Design (CLAD) - Home Page