I received a letter from the local government about a public hearing regarding my local utility company’s proposed merger with another company. It listed the hearing date/time along with two full pages of bureaucratic legalize, why’s, wherefore’s and herein’s regarding the purpose of the notice.
My takeaway after reading the letter is that there is a proposed merger of two utility monopolies. It will undoubtedly be approved after a “public commentary period”. Most assuredly, rates will increase while service levels decrease as a result of one less competitor in the market. The notice doesn’t spell this out. But based on my experience in the real world, I’m fairly confident in my prediction.
In my lifetime, I’ve had to interpret and handle numerous legal documents, contracts and government communications. Most were similar to this letter – verbose, difficult to decipher, and full of legalize and jargon.
Why can’t we use plain, simple English instead?
I suspect that due to legal requirements, verbosity and specific obscure detailed language may be required. I suspect that most of these documents are simply cut-and-paste versions of the way “it has always been done before”, without anyone thinking about today’s recipient. I also suspect that nobody who creates these documents thinks about the recipient’s experience whatsoever. And finally, I suspect that many of these are purposely designed to be obfuscatory.
There’s a right way to do this. Look at Apple’s documentation for anything. The language is crisp, clear, precise and minimal.
Or look at PubMed. Even though these research articles are published with extremely detailed scientific and statistical information, every publication includes summary sections written in plain language to describe the purpose, process and conclusions of the study.
Or look at the CFPB and it’s plain writing initiative to help consumer’s understand credit cards, debt and money.
It can be done.
Someone just has to think about it and care about it.
And someone has to fight the entrenched powers that don’t want it to happen because they prefer to keep the public in the dark (eg. see the CFPB and how long it took for its plain language requirements to happen).
What can you and I do about this?
Probably very little unless you happen to be in a civil service, government or publicly facing position.
Except…we can make sure that every document we create for our customers, patrons and readers is simple, in plain language and understandable. That would be a good start.