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.