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On March 24th, 2005, the governor of Washington State, Christine Gregoire, began a government project called Plain Talk in order to increase the public's ability to understand government documents. It completes a two-part program--the first part being the governor's Government, Management, Accountability and Performance (GMAP) program that hopes to streamline the effectiveness of current and future government programs. Since Plain Talk began, over two thousand state employees have attended writing seminars to improve their documents' readability, according to the Associated Press. "User-friendly documents show our respect for people and their time," said the governor in Executive Order 05-03, which introduced the project. "They are also good customer service. Clearly written documents make it easier for citizens to understand how to access service and the roles of all parties involved."

 

The Governor's office and the Attorney General's staff recruited Dr. Sharon Bridwell to develop a one-day curriculum for the program and teach it to the Governor's office. At The Potter’s School, Dr. Bridwell currently teaches a class on the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. She has been involved with the school since 1998. She says that her extensive experience writing her own English curriculum for both high school and college levels has helped a lot in teaching Plain Talk. "I teach the art form of writing to Potter's School students with the appropriate academic-speak for students to excel as college-level writers. Then I turn around and teach the craft of writing to business participants and professionals who want to say their piece and get on with life. One world doesn't necessarily lend itself well to the other, but I enjoy living in both." She says that she's been working as a writing consultant since she returned from recall to Desert Storm in 1992.  Just last month, with the start of the new year, she began a technical writing consulting corporation: Write Words: American Writing Services. Her vision for the corporation includes capturing "the business and academic markets for facilitated writing classes, online writing courses, and writing coaches." She currently offers a total of twelve seminars—one-, two-, or three-day events—that strengthen skills in technical and business writing, editing, proofreading, and more. Her Basic Grammar Review and Punctuation Skills classes use The Gregg Reference Manual, a grammar reference that ninth-grade English students also use at The Potter’s School. All of her classes at Write Words reflect Plain Talk principles.

To make understanding government documents easier, Plain Talk sets out to “understand customer needs,” “use simple language,” “include only important information [in government documents],” “keep sentences and paragraphs short,” and “use active sentences”—in other words, lose the bureaucrat jargon and start using everyday English. “The public’s experience of us is highly dependent on how we communicate with them,” says an official Plain Talk information sheet. “Citizens have a right to access government services easily and quickly, and clearly written materials make it easier for them to do that. If the letters, applications, brochures and other documents we use are confusing and bureaucratic, it makes it difficult for them to do business with us. Plain Talk is also good business: clearly written instructions and applications make it easier for people to comply with regulations and carry out their end of the relationship. This saves time and money for us, as well as them.”

Though Plain Talk and similar government projects across the nation may spell the end of bureaucratic legalese, it is not by any means a newcomer to American legislation. It finds its origin in the post-World War II Nixon administration, which encouraged the use of “layman’s terms” in the Federal Register. Carter—and Clinton in more recent years—continued the effort to translate the government’s hundreds of thousands of documents into the readily understood dialect of the common man. Today, The Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN), as well as the Center for Plain Language (CPL), carry on the torch, and with the other many thousands of teachers, officials, and statesmen, strive to deliver the government back into the rightful hands of the people.

 

 

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