When it comes to “plain English writing”, this concept is one I can easily explain as hence the name, it is just a way of ensuring that writing is “plain” enough that the majority of the target audience for the content will be able to easily read and understand it quick;y. Furthermore, plain english writing is generally going to be very “clear, concise and correct” as we have learned in class. The reason for this is the fact that when information or writing is very formal, long, lacks clarity and perhaps even contains incorrect information, audiences are going to be more confused and therefore not understand what the meaning or purpose of the content itself actually is. This also mitigates people having to potentially go back through and read writing or content over again as they misunderstood it the first time which is beneficial because some individuals might not be willing to do this as it inconveniences them/doesn’t consider their time or perhaps they just did not even recognize there was a mistake in the very first place. This is negative as unless someone explicitly mentioned that readers might have read the writing incorrectly or misunderstood it, readers will not recognize this in the first place, and so this lack of understanding due to ignoring the importance of plain English writing can not be happening.
To expand on this, plain language is essentially writing that is trying to put the reader first so they can understand the writing easily, in order to easily gather the information they need to know and ultimately use it to fulfill whatever their purpose for actually even seeking out of finding this writing was. What this allows us to do as people who are creating valuable content is ensure that readers can scan through content or just read it quickly once and gather a sufficient understanding of the content so that they can potentially answer their questions or fulfill their need for information perhaps about a particular subject or topic which the content clearly showcases that it is relevant towards. The F Pattern comes into play here too as placing information in a structured way that sets the content up so that readers can easily scan through short bodies of text that use clear headers, shorter sentences and lists to keep content as accessible to the target audience as possible.. Should writing (especially in our industry of marketing and advertising) fail to use plain english writing within content, there is a huge risk being taken on that readers won’t even understand the content quickly and easily enough for it to provide value which basically makes the content’s existence redundant and therefore a waste of money, time and resources. If plain language in content is not at least considered to somewhat of an extent, the purpose of the content such as providing information or positioning a product in our industry have likely not been successfully completed. Overall, plain English writing is a way of writing content that provides the ability for the majority readers in the target audience to understand written pieces of content as quickly, clearly and with as much ease of understanding as is possible in order to fulfill the content’s actual purpose.
RESOURCES:
- Briscoe, W8 – A – Plain Language Writing (W26).pdf, Slide 3
2. Briscoe, W8 – A – Plain Language Writing (W26).pdf Slide 17
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