{"id":1865,"date":"2019-02-25T23:02:46","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T04:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/?p=1865"},"modified":"2026-11-11T22:03:50","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T03:03:50","slug":"56365-plain-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/56365-plain-language\/","title":{"rendered":"56:365 | Plain Language"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m on a perpetual quest for resources to help me improve my writing. Back in 2006 on this very blog, I linked to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/writing-and-presentation\/writing-books-recommended-in-r519\/cutts-m-1995-the-plain-english-guide-oxford-the-oxford-university-press\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Cutts, M. (1995). The plain English guide. Oxford: The Oxford University Press<\/a>. A week ago, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/47365-dreyers-english\/\">I wrote a blog post about how I didn&#8217;t find benefit in Dreyer\u2019s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style<\/a>. I found the recommended writing practices forced the reader to work too hard to understand the author\u2019s thought. My writing\/editing tends to be either for academic publications or for instructional message delivery where clarity is paramount.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/files.constantcontact.com\/742f6b6b001\/4a6def72-a19d-402f-8f8d-68f6a14758a9.pdf\">Literacy Works, a member of the Chicago Literacy Alliance, has created the Clear Language Lab and is hosting a free introductory Plain Language workshop on March 14th at the Literacenter<\/a>. I&#8217;m unable to attend the session, but I wish I could have joined to learn about their approach. I&#8217;ve been following their work on &#8220;plain language&#8221; for some time, and I asked the facilitator of the March 14th session if she could share a few resources.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve included the resources she shared (along with others) below:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/open\/plain-writing\/10-principles.html\">Top 10 Principles for Plain Language from the National Archives<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/plainwriting.shtml\">US SEC Plain Writing Initiative<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.plainlanguage.gov\/\">Plainlanguage.gov<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/pdf\/handbook.pdf\">A Plain English Handbook: How to Create Clear SEC Disclosure Documents (and other things!)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Oxford-Guide-English-Paperback-Reference-ebook-dp-B00FZSX76G\/dp\/B00FZSX76G\/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&amp;me=&amp;qid=1551151662\">Oxford Guide to Plain English<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hemingwayapp.com\/\">Hemingway App ($19.99 US)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/app.grammarly.com\/\">Grammarly (Free Version or Subscription: I never hit send without it!)<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m on a perpetual quest for resources to help me improve my writing. Back in 2006 on this very blog, I linked to Cutts, M. (1995). The plain English guide. Oxford: The Oxford University Press. A week ago, I wrote a blog post about how I didn&#8217;t find benefit in Dreyer\u2019s English: An Utterly Correct&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[194,270],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design","category-inspiration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1865"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1867,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865\/revisions\/1867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}