About the Bureau

Our readers are busy. They want to scan, not read. About 79% of users scan new pages they come across; only 16% read word-by-word. Plain Language saves money, increases efficiency, and reduces the need for clarification.

Morkes, J., and Nielsen, J. (1997). Concise, Scannable, and Objective: How to Write for the Web. www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/writing.html 

• Think of why your audience needs to read the document.
• What does my audience already know?
• Write to everyone who is interested, not just technical experts.

• Even experts prefer clearly written documents.
• What questions will your audience ask?
• Make sure your audience can find what they need.

• Highlight main points with headers and lists.
• Provide links to more information when necessary.
• Writing an e-mail? Put conclusions in the first paragraph so readers are sure to notice them.

• Do not use unnecessary words just because they make you sound authoritative.
• Each paragraph should have one topic sentence and develop one idea.
• In documents, the average sentence length should be 20 words; 15 on the Web.

• People relate better to information that talks directly to them.
• Meaningless words and phrases waste space and your reader’s time.
• Eliminate unnecessary words - An absolute success, completely finished, tentatively suggest.

• Acronyms are not unique. Don’t assume your reader knows them all.
• Don’t use more than two or three abbreviations in each written document.
• Avoid bureaucratic and legal language — “promoting an informed and inclusive multicultural society.”

• Write the action(s) you want the reader to take.
• Use active voice to make clear who is responsible. Passive voice confuses the reader.
• Keep the subject and verb close together to avoid confusion.

• Acronyms and abbreviations distract the attention of your reader.
• Define uncommon terms and use them consistently.
• Define acronyms more than once. If necessary, provide a glossary.

• Headings and lists help your audience find the material they want quickly.
• Use tables and illustrations that visually engage your audience.
• Make sure that all the items in a list start with the same part of speech.

• Review with a pair of fresh eyes—wait two or more days to review or ask a peer to edit.

For more examples, go to: go.usa.gov/G2o

• is NOT imprecise.
• is NOT an attempt to dumb-down information.
• does NOT strip out necessary technical and legal information.
• is NOT only editorial “polishing” after you finish writing.
• is a whole process.
• is NOT just using pronouns in a “question and answer” format.

Plain Language at Census: www.census.gov/about/policies/plain_writing.html

“If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well.” -Albert Einstein