Christine Mowat and Christopher Balmford, keynote speakers at the WriteMark Plain English Conference and Awards 2006, were interviewed by Chris Laidlaw on National Radio's Sunday programme while in New Zealand.

Listen to the 29 October Sunday morning broadcast

09:40  Plain English (duration: 20′01″)

View a video of the Campbell Live story

If you’ve been baffled by gobbledygook recently, take heart. Some of the country’s top government organisations and businesses were honoured last Friday [6 October] in New Zealand’s first plain English awards.

The WriteMark Plain English Awards 2006, sponsored by Write Group Limited, attracted strong competition from organisations all over New Zealand. More than 130 guests gathered for the black tie event at Wellington’s Te Papa Museum to hear the finalists and winners announced in the seven award categories.

The premier award for Plain English Champion — best organisation went to A J Park, a patent attorney firm of over 200 partners and staff. The prize of $10,000 was awarded to the firm for ‘their outstanding progress in creating a plain English culture throughout a firm steeped in tradition and legalese’. The $10,000 prize is to be spent on a specific plain English project designed to bring tangible, measurable results for the firm.

In accepting the award, John Lamb, Chief Executive, said, ‘A J Park set out on this journey to improve our service quality to clients through clear, concise communication. We knew the change to our culture would not happen overnight, so it is exciting and motivating to see the success we have achieved in a short time. It’s great the firm’s decision to do things differently has been recognised in this way’.

Tanya Piejus, Communications Officer for the Department of Building and Housing, won the Plain English Champion — best individual award. This award recognised Tanya’s outstanding personal contribution to the introduction of a plain English culture in an area of government known for its complex forms and regulations. Speaking of Tanya, the judges commented that ‘plain English was in her heart and soul’.

Other winners included: Greater Wellington Regional Council for People’s Choice — Best plain English document; Ministry of Fisheries for Best public sector document; Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand for Best private sector document; and Wellington City Council for Best plain English website.

And, in a good-humoured poke at the all too familiar gobbledygook that still confounds us, a Brainstrain prize was awarded to the Ministry of Social Development for their StudyLink Loan schedule. Dubbed by the judges as ‘appalling’ and ‘a shocker’, this document was a perfect example of text that created confusion, mystery, and frustration for the reader. Rather than the stunning bronze awards handed out to the other winners, the prize for this category was a stainless steel rubbish bin filled with sour worms.

Although not present to collect their prize, the Ministry took the award on the chin and issued a statement from Chief Executive Peter Hughes saying, "Fair cop. We can do a lot better and we will fix it’.

Other finalists in the Brainstrain category included the Sky Television Service Agreement, and the Australian New Zealand Therapeutic Products Authority Joint Agency Establishment Group’s Description of the Joint Regulatory Scheme for the Advertising of Therapeutic Products.

Kevin Milne of Fair Go fame was right behind the cause as MC for the evening. Likewise, keynote speaker Amanda Millar of 60 Minutes entertained with her own tales of the ghastly and impenetrable text she so often encounters in her programme research.

The awards entries were judged by David Russell, retiring CEO of Consumers' Institute; Rachel McAlpine, web content specialist; Jacquie Harrison, Communications Head, Unitec; and Lynda Harris, CEO of Write Group and WriteMark Limited.

WriteMark Awards on Campbell Live

Award winners and finalists

News and photos from 2006 conference

Details of 2006 conference

The WriteMark Plain English Conference and Awards event held at Wellington’s Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa on 6 October 2006 was an outstanding success!

Thanks to all those who made it such a worthwhile and memorable day — delegates, speakers, workshop leaders, our two MCs, those who entered the plain English awards, and the award judges. Special thanks too to all those who worked behind the scenes to make it happen.

This event was a first for New Zealand. Over 100 delegates heard from four international plain English experts who shared their successes and brought us up to date with the best of overseas practice and research. Plus we heard from several New Zealanders who are making a plain English difference in their own public and private sector organisations.

Delegates came from the banking, insurance, academic, legal, government, medical, accounting, and publishing sectors.

We squeezed as much into 1 day as we could — a sit-down conference breakfast with entertaining keynote speaker Duncan Sarkies, 4 keynote addresses and 12 workshops during the day, and a glamorous awards dinner featuring Kevin Milne (MC) and keynote speaker Amanda Millar.

Read more

News and photos from 2006 conference

Award winners and finalists

Presentations and workshops about plain English

Details of 2006 conference

The WriteMark celebration, held on 13 September 2005 to mark a great first six months for New Zealand’s plain English standard, also launched a supporters’ network.

About 100 people attended the ceremony in Wellington — including representatives of firms that have already adopted the new standard, Write Group staff and contractors, Wellington Central MP Marian Hobbs, and actress Lorae Parry, who gave a memorable speech as the one and only ‘Prime Minister Helen Clark’.

It was ‘a coming of age’ for WriteMark, six months after the launch in March 2005, said WriteMark Limited's CEO Lynda Harris. She said a number of ‘early adopters’ were already using WriteMark, and many more organisations were exploring it.

Lynda described the new Plain English Supporters’ Network as ‘a plain English club’ whose members would receive training, support, and free use of two logos (‘We Prefer Plain English’ and ‘Plain English Supporter’) on any printed or online material.

She said Write Group staff were ‘champion translators, not of foreign languages but of pure Kiwi-made bureaucratic legalistic business speak. And it’s our fascination with untangling language that sparked the creation of WriteMark’.

WriteMark had been born of frustration, she said. Write Group had been helping clients write plain English for a decade and while short term results were excellent there was little change in the number of ‘ghastly documents’ being presented.

‘Mission statements from government departments, law firms, banks, and accountants proclaimed that they were writing in plain English. Mostly it wasn’t true. But how would consumers know? What was plain English anyway? What was the standard?

‘When the word “standard” popped up, it became obvious. New Zealand needed a test of business writing that would establish whether it was clear, well structured, well presented and generally reader-friendly. A low-cost, uniquely New Zealand quality mark was born,’ Lynda said.

Former MP Deborah Morris-Travers, now working for Plunket, said that her support of the WriteMark was motivated by the need to make information about policy and political matters accessible to all. After careful scrutiny and rewriting, Plunket’s Advocacy Toolkit now carried the WriteMark, Deborah said. ‘We are a non-governmental organisation with an important role to play in the lives of New Zealanders, and WriteMark supports us in this.’

Other organisations of note at the celebration included:

• Insurance company, Asteron, although not present at the event, was also mentioned as being the first insurance company to achieve the WriteMark standard on a policy document.
• Inland Revenue Child Support, whose National Manager, David Udy, said his aim is to have all public Child Support documents written to the WriteMark standard
• patent attorneys AJ Park, who are working on their own, in-house, plain English campaign, and
• accountants and business advisors Francis Consulting Ltd, whose plain English ‘Letter of Engagement’ is a welcome change from traditional ‘accountant speak’.

Technical Communicators' Association of New Zealand (TCANZ) Wellington Branch Meeting

Notes on a presentation by Lynda Harris (who was assisted by Christopher Travers)

This was mainstream TCANZ stuff. The meeting was held back ‘home’ at Write Group where TCANZ held its first Wellington meetings, with Lynda Harris who was more involved in the early days. Lynda’s topic, quite predictably, was the ever-popular subject of plain English. This was tasty fare for all of us involved in technical writing (though we shy away from defining too closely what that actually is!).

Lynda asked what we thought our unique selling points (USPs) were. The varied response gave her an opportunity to put forward a common USP: ‘making information clear’. Many organisations claim they write in plain English, but while many are called, few, it appears, are chosen. Reaching and displaying a standard means that those who really do write in plain English, get the credit.

Communications from the Earthquake Commission are a good example of non-plain English. Lynda got one letter in response to a claim, made some attempt to arrive at the meaning, and after a phone call, discovered she had failed.

Write Group saw the need for a plain English standard in New Zealand a number of years ago and brought the Plain English Campaign’s Crystal Mark here in the year 2000. It proved too expensive for most organisations, so Lynda eventually invented their own — New Zealand’s first plain English standard, named the WriteMark. The WriteMark delivers all those intangibles common to quality marks — credibility, trust, standards, quality and value.

Lynda has an ambitious goal of a ‘plain English New Zealand’. This means having the WriteMark adopted by some of the worst ‘non-plain’ culprits — government, professional, finance, utility, health and telecommunications organisations. She plans to run media campaigns, appoint WriteMark agents, get support from industry leaders, and create a plain English supporters’ network.

It’s off to a good start: Inland Revenue, the Insurance and Savings Ombudsman, Francis Consulting, Surf Lifesaving (Northern), Asteron Life Ltd, Med Info Ltd and others have adopted it. They did so because displaying the WriteMark signals their commitment to plain English — a commitment that brings considerable benefits to any organisation. Lynda summarised the ‘outputs’ of plain English as being increased clarity, readability, accuracy, efficiency, accountability and goodwill. She expects that for commercial organisations, WriteMark will become a buying factor — in other words the brand with the WriteMark will become the brand of choice.

Plain English has had measurable success overseas. British Telecom reduced queries by 25% when they redesigned their invoice; Royal Mail saved £500k in nine months by redesigning one form. Lynda gave other examples.

Plain English clearly, concisely and appropriately focuses on readers’ needs.

And it’s more than just words. Along with checking the language, WriteMark assessors look at purpose, structure, content, tone, accuracy, relevance, presentation and so on. The bottom line test is that the reader should understand on the first reading. Assessors don’t look hard for errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation and typos, but can’t help finding them! Writing that fails the assessment is sent back with a report of what needs to be done to bring it up to standard. Write Group doesn’t intend building an editing empire to do the fixing — they’re looking at the agent network to do that.

Look out for Plain English Day in March 2006; it’s to be a big celebration!

Look out too for opportunities to become a WriteMark advocate. Advocates pick up a commission on writing sent in for assessment.

Since we provide an important service to the New Zealand public we need to make sure that our information is very clear and understandable to all. We try to use plain language in all of our public communications and getting the WriteMark on our latest brochure is evidence of our commitment. The idea of measuring up to a published quality standard appeals — it's one thing to say we use plain English, but quite another to be able to prove it. We're now looking at ways to meet this quality standard in as many of our communications as possible.

Sixty members of the Public Sector Communicators’ Network attended a presentation by Lynda Harris, founder of the WriteMark — New Zealand’s first quality mark for documents. Hot on the heels of WriteMark launch, the presentation outlined the benefits of using plain English, including how to create and support a plain English culture within an organisation.

Susan Bartel, Network Committee member, hosted the presentation at the National Library Auditorium. Introducing Lynda, Susan said, 'When I heard about the WriteMark I thought it was an excellent idea, and that the Network would be very interested to know about it'.

To demonstrate the WriteMark assessment process, Network members were invited in advance to enter a plain English writing competition. Their documents were assessed against WriteMark’s plain English standard.

The winner of the competition was Brian Bond from Inland Revenue. Congratulations Brian! Lynda said his entry, Dave’s Story, fulfilled all the assessment criteria: 'It's an excellent and engaging example of a message clearly conveyed, where there is no doubt about its meaning, or the desired result'. Brian won a copy of StyleWriter for his office — an excellent plain English software editor.

Business card draw winners were Emma Williams from the Ministry for the Environment (a free document assessment) and Kate Fox from Victoria University (a copy of The Write Style Guide for New Zealanders: A Manual for Business Editing).

The presentation was a great success — a positive sign of public sector awareness of the need for clear communication.

'Working to achieve a WriteMark has provided us with an opportunity to update materials and make sure they are in plain English. This is beneficial to everyone involved. It makes our information, and our organisation, more accessible to all.

We value our relationship with Write Group and the expertise they provide in support of Plunket.'

'We are always looking at ways to make it easier for our customers to meet their child support responsibilities. Having clearly written information about our services, policies and processes helps us to support and educate our customers. We are now looking to bring our other publications up to a plain English standard. Our aim is to ensure all our written material provides complete and accurate information in a clear, straightforward way, free of jargon.'

'Francis Consulting is proud to be the first chartered accountancy practice to be awarded the WriteMark. As a firm that undertakes a great deal of business advisory work, it is critical that our documents convey a clear and concise message. The WriteMark lets our clients know that we communicate in plain English — and that can only be a good thing for them and us.'

After much anticipation, WriteMark officially launched on 1 March 2005. 

Guests and Write Group staff celebrated the occasion in festive style, cutting a WriteMark cake and toasting the future success of the national campaign.

The WriteMark Business Development Manager, Christopher Travers, welcomed everybody, and in particular thanked people and staff who had directly assisted with the launch. These included:

• Joanne Ruscoe and Vanessa Rawson from Ruscoe PR Ltd, who secured national media attention for the launch of WriteMark
• Stefan Wahrlich, who did the photographic design work for the impressive WriteMark brochure
• Craig Christensen from Graphic Solutions, who worked on all the brand, brochure format, logos and PR support material.

Guests who had already achieved the WriteMark were commended for their pioneering spirit in embracing the campaign and leading the way for others with the document assessment process. Christopher said, ‘I want to congratulate you and tell you we consider you our champions … you will forever be a part of the history and foundation of the WriteMark’.

In introducing the WriteMark Director, Lynda Harris, Christopher recognised Lynda’s visionary leadership with the WriteMark campaign: ‘Lynda has a compelling mission and empowers others to participate. She encourages others to embrace the challenge of plain English and supports and recognises their effort’.

In responding, Lynda then acknowledged everyone’s support, in particular, Richard Francis from Francis Consulting: ‘Richard Francis’s support, advice, and encouragement were invaluable and I am personally very thankful for his help in making a good idea become a business reality’.

Lynda then acknowledged all the organisations and individuals who have achieved the WriteMark, and set out some of the objectives and goals of the national campaign, including the launch of Plain English Day on 1 March 2006.

   

A Wellington business writing company is launching the WriteMark, the country’s first quality mark for documents written to a high standard of plain English.

The WriteMark is the brainchild of Lynda Harris, owner of Write Group Limited, New Zealand’s leading plain English writing consultancy and training organisation.

Any document or web page can be awarded a WriteMark once it has been checked by a WriteMark editor against a strict standard of clarity, grammar, and presentation.

‘The WriteMark is not about “dumbing down” written information. Rather, it is about rewarding companies and organisations for making a real effort to communicate in plain English,’ says Lynda Harris.

‘It is also about setting a benchmark. People often say they write in plain English, but there can be a huge discrepancy in the standard of documents.

‘Too many public sector organisations, large corporations, and professional services firms continue to swamp their clients with long-winded and jargon-laden information. The easier a document is to read, the faster it can be understood and the less chance there is of confusion.

‘WriteMark is encouraging organisations, big and small, to look at their public information and consider how it is presented and how easy it is to understand,’ she says.

A company investing in the WriteMark can display the quality symbol on any document or web page that meets the standard.

Lynda Harris believes everyday use of plain English helps build trust and loyalty in an organisation which can lead to a better level of customer service and a competitive advantage.

‘A similar campaign in Great Britain is supported by hundreds of private and public sector organisations committed to plain language. They recognise the need for a quality mark for all their public information,’ she says.