Episode 22 | How Bureaucratic Jargon Can Cost Lives March 20, 2022
GUESTS: Katherine Spivey and Katina Rae Stapleton, Co-Chairs, Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN)
When you think of models of clear writing and easy communication, do you think of the Federal Government? It turns out one of the leading perpetrators of the bureaucratic lingo and dense legalese that most people detest has been quietly cleaning up its act for the past 10 years. Our guests, Katherine Spivey and Katina Rae Stapleton, are federal employees who volunteer their time and expertise to help their colleagues across multiple agencies and offices create government documents and other written resources in plain language. Guided by the Plain Writing Act of 2010, they work to improve U.S. citizens’ ability to access and understand government information and services. In this episode, we talk with them about the importance of clear communications, from everyday interactions that help make policy more understandable, to more urgent situations where words can have life-and-death consequences.
GUEST BIOS: Katherine Spivey is co-chair of the Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN), which is a community of federal employees who volunteer time and expertise to support the use of clear communication in government writing. She is a senior communications specialist for the U.S. General Services Administration’s Office of Strategic Communications and coordinates the agency’s plain language program. She also teaches plain language courses for DigitalGov University and other federal agencies. She is a frequent speaker at PLAIN’s annual summits, as well as international events. In 2021, she was awarded with a Service to Citizen: Champions of Change award for her work with PLAIN. For most of her career, she has worked in web content management, including posts at the Department of Homeland Security and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Katherine has taught at community colleges, as well as the Amphibious Warfare School in Quantico, Va. She has a master’s degree in English from the University of Virginia and a bachelor’s in English from the University of Mary Washington.
Katina Rae Stapleton is co-chair of the Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN), where she also provides training for federal employees on how to clearly communicate with their audiences. As a program officer with the Institute of Education Services (IES) at the U.S. Department of Education, Katina oversees research training programs and provides guidance to the department on communications, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility issues. She is the co-chair of the IES Diversity Council and was secretary of the agency-wide Diversity and Inclusion Council. Katina has an undergraduate degree in print journalism from the University of Maryland at College Park and a Ph.D. in political science from Duke University, where she specialized in political communication. Before joining the federal government, Katina was an assistant professor of political science at Syracuse University. She has also been an adjunct professor for Georgetown University’s master’s program in Communication, Culture & Technology.
LINKS:
Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN)
Plain Language Communities on Digital.gov
Center for Plain Language’s Federal Report Card
Clarity International – An international organizaiton of plain language practitioners who believe in a world free of legalese.
Plain International – An international associaiton for plain language supporters and practitioners around the world.
Content Teatime – content strategists based in northern England who host content related chats and meetups.
Alan Alda – Clear + Vivid podcast, Scientific American Frontiers TV show
Full Transcript
BRAD PHILLIPS, HOST, THE SPEAK GOOD PODCAST:
When you think of clear and direct communication, what do you think of?
I’m guessing your answer to that question wasn’t “anything written by the Federal Government.”
But if I asked you the opposite question – what do you think of when you think of bureaucratic, legalistic, and incomprehensible language –you might well have answered that one by saying the Federal Government.
That stereotype – often deserved – was highlighted in The Washington Post a few years ago, which featured this excerpt from the Department of Education, which the Post called a “plain-language failure.” Here’s the blurb:
“TFA and the Teaching Fellows programs may attract different types of candidates than other routes to certification—these differences can arise both from the programs’ approaches to recruitment and selection and from the teachers’ decisions on which programs to apply to attend. Therefore, differences in effectiveness between TFA teachers and comparison teachers, and between Teaching Fellows and comparison teachers, reflect the influence of both differences in the types of individuals who choose to enter teaching through TFA or a Teaching Fellows program versus some other training program and differences in the recruitment and selection procedures and training and support the programs offer. The study cannot rigorously disentangle these components.”
Seriously, what? I’m not sure anyone reading that would be able to rigorously disentangle that writer’s intention.
But this episode is not just an opportunity to bash he Federal Government. Because it turns out that some people – hundreds of them – within the government are working hard to translate information into plain language.
Karen Schriver – an expert in information design and plain language – wrote that “Plain language is often viewed as a quaint idea concerning the activities of persnickety writing teachers who act as grammar police—slicing and dicing sentences while enforcing pedestrian rules of readability and style.” But as she goes onto note, that’s plain wrong.
Consider a natural disaster, when frightened people land on a government webpage to figure out what they should do. Or a single mom seeking guidance regarding the benefits she may be eligible for to help afford basic necessities for her child. Or the non-native English speaker trying to sign up for Medicare.
People seeking information from the government that serves them – and that they fund – shouldn’t have to work double time just to try to understand what it’s trying to tell them. And sometimes, the use of plain language may even be a matter of life and death. And here’s something I didn’t know until preparing for this episode: the Federal Government is required, by law, to use plain language in their communications.
I’m joined today by two guests, both of whom are co-chairs of the Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN), which is a community of federal employees who volunteer time and expertise to support the use of clear communication in government writing.
In addition to her role with PLAIN, Katherine Spivey is a senior communications specialist for the U.S. General Services Administration’s Office of Strategic Communications.
And beyond her PLAIN duties, Katina Rae Stapleton is a program officer with the Institute of Education Services (IES) at the U.S. Department of Education, where Katina oversees research training programs and provides guidance to the department on communications, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility issues.
(MUSIC PLAYS)
Katina Stapleton, Katherine Spivey, thank you very much for joining me. I think people may be surprised to learn that there’s actually a law – it was passed back in 2010 under the Obama administration – called the Plain Writing Act, which was described as an act to enhance citizen access to government information and services, by establishing that government documents issued to the public must be written clearly and for other purposes, whatever that means. Perhaps even more surprisingly, especially given our current political climate, that act passed overwhelmingly with a bipartisan vote. So, I think the place to begin is what is plain writing?
KATINA RAE STAPLETON:
I’ll jump in from the beginning. So plain writing is writing that is clear, concise, well organized, and most importantly, easy to understand by its intended audience. So, if you’re writing for a particular group, you want to make sure they are able to understand it. I think that’s the core. What do you like to add Katherine?
KATHERINE SPIVEY:
Well, there’s also the definition that we have on plainlanguage.gov, which is language that is plain to one set of readers that may not be plain to others. Material is in plain language if your audience can find what they need, understand what they find the first time they read or hear it, and use what they find to meet their needs. So that to me is, is pretty much plain language.
PHILLIPS:
I think sometimes people feel like you’re the grammar police when we have these types of conversations. But in fact, plain language is really important because as we pointed out in the open, some government services are literally a matter of life and death. And if people don’t understand what they should do in an emergency or what they should do in terms of healthcare options, it really could put their life and safety at risk. So, in that context, can you talk a little bit about why, in your view, plain language is so important?
SPIVEY:
Absolutely. It’s important in general, but specifically for government and the federal government, because the federal government communicates with all the people it affects, whether they’re citizens or not. And all those people should be able to understand what it is the federal government wants. Otherwise, the writers of this, speaking generally, are frustrated because what they need to have happen doesn’t happen, or it doesn’t happen at the right time. And then the audience, the receiver of this information, is frustrated because they don’t know what they need to do to get what they want. And speaking as a person who gets frustrated very easily by unclear or contradictory instructions, we as a government, shouldn’t let that happen.
PHILLIPS:
It seems like it’s so obvious: We should be writing in language that’s plain, that our audiences can understand. There’s nothing revolutionary about the idea, but, of course, the trick is in the execution, which is where things get problematic. And I’m curious where you think the problem originated. For example, we work with a lot of attorneys, and I could see an attorney saying, you know, if it’s too plain, then we may lose some of the nuance, which is really important, and it may even change the meaning. And, of course, the more of those conversations and then regulators weigh in, the language and the wording just gets bogged down. Where do you think the problem started? Was it just habit? Was it that sense that lawyers and regulators might have thought that instructions were incomplete and maybe even put the government at risk of litigation if they weren’t as specific as they needed to be in their communications?
STAPLETON:
I think it’s actually much more basic than that. I think there’s two issues. One is that writers, people in general, want to convey what they want to say, right? Not necessarily what people need to know. And so plain language reverses that by putting the audience first. So, if you really concentrate on what people need to know, rather than what you want to say, your writing will be clearer. And then, the other part is just education. Over time, we have been taught that bigger words, more complicated words, longer sentences and paragraphs equals intelligence and good writing. But, that’s not actually what needs to happen, especially in government writing. The purpose is to be clear, not to sound smart. And so, I think that’s something that has contributed to what you referred to as, bureaucratese, or things like that.
PHILLIPS:
I’m so glad that you said it’s more basic than that. You know, the idea is that they’re writing what they want to say. And my mind immediately went to the idea that there is a bit of a curse of knowledge with people who have subject matter expertise and then are trying to communicate it. What is jargon to us on the outside doesn’t always immediately appear to be jargon to them. How have you tried to break down those walls within the federal government?
SPIVEY:
Well, there are times, you know, when I think that the whole governmentese problem, the complicated unintelligible prose, might just be a giant cut-and-paste problem or a committee. And, you know, no matter how it started, perhaps using high-minded or even allegorical language for new government, or wanting to just sound more authoritative, maybe it’s a habit, but we can break that habit. To put in a good word, many lawyers and judges support plain language, and many policy makers want people to follow the policy, but sometimes the language gets in the way. And we tend to have to look at that. And I think that what we need more of is rewriting and testing with audiences. And I will say that one of my own personal steps is whenever I see someone asking for feedback, I give it to them. (Such as in a situation where they say) I didn’t do this because I didn’t understand what I was supposed to do. And I wasn’t going to call to find out. Katina, what about you?
STAPLETON:
Yeah. I would just interject that scientists like clear writing too. In fact, most people, if you ask them, would prefer to be able to understand what it is that they’re reading. And I feel like there’s sort of this mystery audience out there that likes things complicated, but when you start asking people, everyone’s like, no, not it. I actually prefer things to be clear.
PHILLIPS:
I have a book out called The Media Training Bible. And one of the things I say in the book is that the three words that make me bristle more than any others are “dumb it down,” because that’s not what plain language is. There’s a difference between dumbing down and simplifying and making more accessible. There’s a wonderful series on WIRED, the website WIRED.com, called 5 Levels. An expert will be asked to speak to five different people, one-on-one. The first person is a child. Then there’s a teenager. Then there’s a college undergraduate. Then there’s a grad student. And finally, there’s a fellow expert. And what’s really interesting when you watch the experts communicating with all of these different audiences, is that when the expert speaks to the teenager, which is often I think a pretty good place for general communication, they are certainly not dumbing down the language. They respect the intelligence of the person that they’re speaking to, and teens are no dummies, they can take a lot of information in. And so, all of that is a long way of asking you how you, I assume that you heard that kind of pushback, that we don’t want to dumb things down. How have you countered that when you have encountered that concern internally?
SPIVEY:
Well, Katina, do you want to start?
STAPLETON:
Sure. It’s not about dumbing things down. It’s really about trying to state things in the clearest way possible. I think part of the issue comes from the fact that much of what we write is needlessly complex. And so, I work in a science agency. And so, it’s really interesting when you start drilling down into the concepts how much better things are when you’re able to say something in a much more straightforward way so that people can understand it. But, quite frankly, it takes training. Once you have spent a lot of time, especially people that have been in academia like myself, we like to hear ourselves talk. We like to see our own writing. To use a big word, we’re enamored with it. And so, it takes a bit of retraining to say, no, actually I think I want to say the more straightforward thing. And, it’s actually hard and it’s not dumbing down, but it actually takes a lot of effort to take complicated scientific concepts and explain it in a way that conveys the information correctly, because that’s the problem with dumbing things down is that oftentimes you take away the important information.
So, the key is to be able to convey the proper information in a way that people understand without losing the critical nuance, but getting rid of the nuance that’s not necessary.
SPIVEY:
Yes. And that, I really appreciate what you said about mental load, because it’s important to us. This is the curse of knowledge that you mentioned earlier, but it’s really important to realize that we are only experts in our own field. Just because I’m an expert in say writing or plain language means that I don’t necessarily know anything at all about leasing public facilities or information technology or, you know, green power. Just because you’re an expert in one doesn’t mean you’re an expert in anything else. And I think people forget that, and there are always times when we’d actually prefer it to be easier. I might be able to disentangle it, but I’d rather not. I’ve got other things I’d like to work on instead of disentangling an email or article or a report or anything like that. So, it’s a way of not dumbing down, but respecting another person’s time. And that’s gotten really big in my book.
PHILLIPS:
Katina said something a moment ago about working with scientists and the scientists presumably are working on behalf of the American people at federal agencies. And, therefore, their communications should be clear and easy to understand by those they’re serving. And, you know, you kind of made the point that you’re enamored with your own writing. And, I think there’s a place for that. I mean, it’s a beautiful thing to write eloquent prose that’s complex, but not if your goal is to communicate effectively with a more general audience that needs critical information to make better choices and understand some of the societal issues that we’re dealing with. And so along those lines, I’d like to ask some of the real-life harmful consequences that you have seen, observed, encountered through your years where plain language wasn’t just a matter of style or form, but really put people at risk.
SPIVEY:
Okay. This was not our government, but I learned of it when I was first getting involved in plain language. And, it was the Australian wildfires. And that would’ve been, I think maybe 2009, I’m not a hundred percent sure, but around that time. The instructions for escaping this horrific wildfire were not plain. They should have read things like: Get out of here. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Don’t stop for food or pets or your suitcases. Get out of town. And they weren’t, they were vague. They were along the lines of, you know, you might want to consider evacuating, but people died. And that has always stuck with me that people died because someone was not willing to rewrite something into a way that people could understand.
PHILLIPS:
Yeah. Certainly, in those types of emergencies communications, I think we’ve seen this as an example over the past couple of years with COVID and I’m not going to ask the two of you who both work for the federal government to criticize your colleagues. But in the spirit less of criticism and more of reflection, I am curious, as you’ve seen certain public health officials and public health agencies be criticized for what many people perceive to be a lack of clear communication, even conflicting messaging, what have you taken from that? And where do you think we can all learn as communicators and maybe even within the federal government so that if we face another pandemic, hopefully not in our lifetimes, but if we do, that we would be better prepared to communicate about it?
STAPLETON:
So, two things struck me with your question. So, one of them is around uncertainty. So, we learned that we are very poor at conveying messages around uncertain concepts. And so, some of the messaging was confusing, because the underlying information was confusing. We really did not know what to do. And it’s difficult to convey to people that level of uncertainty, I’m not necessarily sure that that’s something that could be fixed alone with plain language. But I think it’s a combination of being clear about what you do know and what you don’t know, so that people can make good choices based on that information. And the second is that we didn’t have enough people training crisis communications. And so, it was as a pandemic, it wasn’t just the health agencies and the safety agencies, literally it was every agency that was in crisis mode, and we were caught unprepared, I would say, as a whole. And I think that’s something that we really need to think about in the future as communicators.
SPIVEY:
On the plus side, if I can say something about a silver lining, people now know that they need crisis communication and plain language. But I much prefer that we didn’t need that in that context.
PHILLIPS:
I am curious, because as I mentioned at the beginning, this is a matter of law and plain language seems to be somewhat subjective. What is plain to one might not be plain to others. Although I know that you set some general parameters around the definition of what is plain language. So, given that it’s a function of law, is there a body or a group of people responsible for making sure that those writing for or on behalf of the government are indeed writing plainly?
SPIVEY:
Our minions are everywhere.
PHILLIPS:
Okay. Now, I’m a little terrified. Tell me more about who your minions are.
SPIVEY:
Katina, do you want to start on this one?
STAPLETON:
Sure. She’s just joking. There are no minions.
PHILLIPS:
Good. Because I have a picture of those little yellow cartoon minions at various agencies looking over the shoulder of people as they’re typing. But I think you probably have something better to add to that.
STAPLETON:
Yeah. No minions and no plain language police. So, I like to think of it as a continuous improvement process. And so, with every communication in every year, we’re striving to become better. And so, every agency is going to have someone assigned to do that. But in the end, your customer-slash-audience is going be the person that tells you whether or not it was plain. And so, for me, that comes with, are you getting complaints. In my office, in particular, are you getting a lot of questions? The more questions we receive, the more we know that what we wrote was not clear. Because if the underlying document or communication was clear, we would not have that many questions.
PHILLIPS:
Yes.
SPIVEY:
Yeah. It’s the audience who determines whether it’s plain or not. And that is so irritating for people trying to get things right before they publish it. The writers, we do what we can, we follow the known research principles. We follow the plain language guidelines. If we’re lucky, we’re able to test those on a sample audience, but really it’s the reader who decides, not us. But, as Katina said, it’s good to be able to test, like, if nothing else, the readability of the most visited pages on the website; the material going to the highest population; the really important material, you know, to look at that. And give that a look to say, is this going to make sense to someone who’s not in the office, not necessarily knowing what this is? And that’s also led us to look more at, instead of just describing, looking at what the impact on the reader is going to be. And that’s helped change our writing practices I think a little bit to considering more of what the reader wants to know.
PHILLIPS:
Are there tools that you use or that the people who are doing any form of writing are using to test their language? I’m thinking about things like Microsoft has. I think it’s pronounced the Flesch-Kincaid grade level test, where that gives you one piece of data. They also have other tools that could analyze the complexity of the language that you’re using. And there’s other tools that will even look at, are the paragraphs too long, are the sentences too long? Can they be broken up into bullet form? Are there those kinds of automated tools that people are using internally to gauge their plain language? Or, is what you’re talking about on top of that, that it also needs some type of human intervention?
SPIVEY:
I don’t think the tools are quite up to fixing everything. I long for that day. That would be great. It’s helpful to use what you’re describing as the readability formulas, the Flesch-Kincaid, the Gunning Fog (index), Microsoft Word, whatever, to give a ballpark, but those are easily jiggered, and you can get a lower readability score without it necessarily being plain. So, we use those sometimes with a grain of salt, just to see, you know, what would this do? How can we fix that? But I think English is a very complicated language, in many respects, with the two great feeds of the different languages into that for the background. So, no. And different agencies have different criteria for what tools they allow. So, we don’t use them in my agency. I know some people are testing some of those.
STAPLETON:
If I can jump in, I would add that one issue with the tools is that they’re content agnostic and plain language is not content agnostic. The actual information is the most important part. So, you could have something that pass these tests, but doesn’t include the information people actually need, which makes the document not plain. So, the document really needs to meet its actual purpose for it to be considered in plain language.
PHILLIPS:
You mentioned a few minutes ago that one of the ways you gauge the effectiveness is whether or not it works for the audience, for the readers, and that sometimes people will write in and make clear that they didn’t understand it. What other ways do you have other than kind of that direct feedback to gauge whether or not a piece of writing or a piece of communication has hit the mark?
STAPLETON:
I was going to give an example from our office. One of our major products for the year, for lack of better term, is a very large document that’s called a request for our applications. And so, each year we try to make it clearer and clearer. And some things are successful and others not. But, we give a survey to applicants at the end of each year. And on that survey are questions about the clarity of what we wrote: Did they understand what we meant, what was missing, etc. And then we use that to improve the document for the next year. So, that’s just one example, just ask for feedback directly.
PHILLIPS:
And, are there things, when you get that feedback, that surprised you, that caught you off guard? That you didn’t anticipate?
STAPLETON:
Sure. All the time. So, one rule of thumb, that I think is true, is that what is clear to you may not be clear to anyone else. And so, when you are writing with yourself as the audience, you have probably done something wrong.
PHILLIPS:
Right.
STAPLETON:
Unless you are literally just writing your diary – hopefully, you would understand that – but anything else, you really need to know what that other person needs to know, not what it is that you wanted to say.
PHILLIPS:
Katina, when you’re writing, do you have a person in your mind’s eye that you’re writing for?
STAPLETON:
Yes. Most of the time, it’s my boss or my coworkers. And so, I have an idea of the types of things they would like to see. And I make sure that I include them. But when I’m writing for outside audiences, I try to envision who is going to be the immediate audience, but also who the message might be passed on to after that. So, I can make sure that information is included, so that we don’t get returned things like what about this? And what about that? I just try to anticipate all of those questions upfront and include it without making it overly long.
PHILLIPS:
And what about you, Katherine? Do you have a target person in your mind when you’re writing?
SPIVEY:
I have a picture of someone like me, but not me, who is maybe just a little in need of another cup of tea, whose head slightly is dealing with a sinus allergy headache. Someone who really should be working on something else at the time and is trying to keep an eye on the clock because she has to go out for a doctor’s appointment. So, my audience that I’m remembering is not one that’s looking for great eloquence. She’s looking for the information that’ll help her do her job better. You know whether it’s sign up for this or here’s an article for you, or here’s a tip on writing those things that you find so hard. You know, I tend to look at everything from an eye on, will this help the reader do their job better?
PHILLIPS:
What I really like about that is that the person you just described as someone who certainly is capable of engaging with full focus on information, but, like most of us, is so fully distracted by the daily demands of life that you would rather not have to do that.
SPIVEY:
Right, yeah.
PHILLIPS:
Please just give me the information I need, so that I can act upon it and move on to do the 88 other things on my list for the day.
SPIVEY:
Exactly.
PHILLIPS:
So that is respect for the audience. I’d like to shift gears because one of the things on your website that you talk about is diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts. And I think some people might be surprised that there’s plain writing that intersects with both of those. Obviously 2020, in particular, after the murder of George Floyd, was a watershed year for social, environmental justice, health equity, diversity in the workforce, and accessibility for all. You now incorporate elements such as eliminating deceptive and manipulative language and ensuring accessibility for all audiences. Can you explain what the connection is between plain writing and accessibility and how and why it would help push DEI goals forward?
SPIVEY:
I think, and I was just listening to Content Teatime earlier today, which had a great presentation on this, but I think it acts like the physical accessibility laws. For example, everyone gets that people who use wheelchairs may need ramps. That that makes a huge difference. And we’ve also learned that ramps help people with carts or strollers or crutches and canes or whatever. And so along those same lines, people who are low literacy or not readers or new to government, and that’s a whole bunch of slices right there, all of those people benefit from plain language, but also people who are busy, stressed, in emergency situations, they too will benefit from plain language. And it’s hard to think of someone who would not benefit from plain language. Has anyone, no one has ever complained, that I’ve heard of, that something is too easy. There are sometimes that people don’t believe it’s actually understandable, but that’s a different problem. In fact, you reminded me when you were talking earlier about the science communications, Alan Alda started his scientific communication training and his Clear + Vivid podcast, because as he explained, he loves science. He’s always loved science. He was working with scientists for his TV show, scientific discoveries, whatever the name is (Scientific American Frontiers). And he was running into the same problem when he was talking to them and asking about their projects. They would say, oh, we were working on this, but it didn’t get funded. Congress didn’t fund it. And, you know, he followed the thread a little closer and he finally had to say, Hello, you know, your projects are great. And I think they’re really interesting, but you’re not getting funded because Congress doesn’t know what you do.
PHILLIPS:
Yeah. He’s done some really interesting work. I believe he’ll do contests where he and his group will put out a question, how would you explain this complicated phenomenon or topic? And then the people who are able to explain that complexity in relatable and understandable terms win the prize. Everything that we’ve been talking about so far, they manage to do it without dumbing the content down and without losing the heart of the accuracy that they need to be able to communicate. Anything else you’d like to add, Katina? The question I was asking about accessibility and DEI efforts, anything from your perspective?
STAPLETON:
So, for me, all of us in plain language have, well most of us have, other duties as assigned. And so, one of mine is in that space. And so, for me, it’s about equity. It’s about accessibility. And I feel like it’s fundamental to plain language. It’s giving everyone an equal playing field. So, you want it so that everyone can understand what you’re writing at – that there’s not a certain group of people that understand the jargon and then have access to this information. And then the rest of you, who are normally the majority, aren’t able to understand. And I think that’s especially important in government where ability to access things is linked to your ability to understand how to fill out forms, to read instructions. And it really should not be the case that only people who are skilled at reading complex things are able to do that. I think everyone should be able to understand their forms and be able to access the services and things that they need.
PHILLIPS:
And just to kind of dig in a little bit further, are you talking here about, in part, making sure that you’re writing is understandable to all sort of different education levels, to people who might not speak English as a first language, and maybe don’t speak great English at all, but who obviously need the critical information that people are trying to share. Is that all part of it? Because even in asking the question, when I brought up diversity, equity, inclusion, the first thing I said was 2020 was the watershed year with George Floyd. So, my mind was going to racial diversity, but as you answered the question, I was thinking maybe it’s less about that and more about education and more about language barriers and differences, or is it all of that?
STAPLETON:
I was coming from the point of view of access to knowledge base, an ability to understand more complex things. But the truth is even people with doctorates, law degrees, engineers are stumped by things that aren’t written clearly. We see that every day. I think the problem is worse for people that don’t have those degrees. But I think that unclear language is the great equalizer, right? But we don’t want the low bar, right? We want a high bar where things are clear, and everyone can understand, and not a low bar where things are confusing, and no one can understand.
SPIVEY:
And we want people to aim to have produced plain language. We don’t just want them to say, oh, you know, this is, this is probably going to work. We want people to be able to look at their own material, and this is so hard, to look at their own material with a much more critical eye and to ask, as I do, what is this sentence doing here? What purpose does this paragraph serve? Does this section, could this come out, could this be a different article entirely, and to really look at and think, does this fit? Is this something that somebody needs? Is this actually earning its keep in the text?
STAPLETON:
I think one other intersection we need to think about is not plain language per se, but it’s closely related. And, that’s about inclusive language. So that as we are writing, we’re writing in ways that include different audiences. And so, one example that struck me is that recently I’ve been working on something that we were calling a listening series and I actually had a deaf colleague send me an email and say, it’s not a listening series for me.
PHILLIPS:
Mm.
STAPLETON:
She said, I hate things that are called listening series. Can you rename it to a learning series, so that I can be included in these discussions? I thought listening series was clear and it was, but it wasn’t inclusive. And so, those things we have to be cognizant of as well.
PHILLIPS:
That is such an interesting takeaway. Sometimes when we talk about presentation best practices, one of the things I’ve said is if there are a lot of words on a slide, let’s say you’re quoting something and you want to put the full quote up, even though generally you shouldn’t have a whole lot of stuff going on on the slide that sometimes you want to put it on the screen and just let people read it for themselves. Because they read it a different pace. if you read it out loud could just create a conflict. Should I listen to the speaker, or should I try to read it for myself? And then I got similar pushback where people said, you know, there may be visually impaired people in the audience who struggle with trying to read it off a screen. So, there’s all those little things that maybe I take for granted that I shouldn’t. And that’s a great example that you just offered of that. On the website, on your website at plainlanguage.gov, you offer a lot of tips for how people can be more effective writers. So, thinking outside of the federal government, to anybody who might be listening to this now, what are two or three things that you’ve learned that if you do nothing else and you do those things will immediately help people be more successful in their efforts to write more plainly.
SPIVEY:
Oh wow. Yes. Let’s see. I think that the things that I see the most complaints about is, it’s jargon. Oh my gosh. People hate government jargon and acronyms. I used to participate in first Fridays, which is a program where we test government websites for usability. And one of the top, out of the top 10, these three things were often in the top five as well, which is simply too much information at all. And you know, obviously, you need to cut that down and check it, and jargon and acronyms. And oddly enough, I get a lot of complaint letters or complaint emails about capitalization. Like, why do we capitalize the F in federal and the G in government? Now we don’t, there’s different agencies use different style guides, but people really, really hate that. But, yeah, the jargon, the long sentences, and the acronyms, I think are the biggest.
PHILLIPS:
That’s interesting what you just said. Why would the federal government use multiple style guides?
SPIVEY:
Well, each agency has a different audience.
PHILLIPS:
So, I was thinking of things like federal government. So is there standardization for those types of basic acronyms or those basic grammatical choices?
SPIVEY:
No. Some agencies capitalize that. GSA follows AP style, so we don’t. Others do use what’s the other one, Chicago?
PHILLIPS:
Chicago. That just strikes me as weird that the federal government doesn’t have one style guide that everybody working for one agency. So theoretically then EPA could say federal government with capital F capital G and FEMA may say, no, we’re going to use lowercase F lowercase G. That seems weird to me.
SPIVEY:
Well, I was just going to say that I think I’d rather fight the plain language fight than the style guide fight.
STAPLETON:
(LAUGHS)
PHILLIPS:
That would be my editorializing that came from me and not from my two guests who are speaking on behalf of the whole government and not creating any inadvertent controversies. Here’s where I’d like to end our conversation. I’d like to ask you where you think we are in all of this. Obviously these efforts have been going on for some time now. I suspect it will take a lot more constant work, but given the stereotypes I think people have about federal government and being kind of very bureaucratic in its language, how much progress, and I’m sure this is agency by agency and this is a broad question, but in general terms, how much progress do you think the government has made in moving toward this more plain writing style and how much more do you think they still have to do?
STAPLETON:
Kathryn, would you like to go first?
SPIVEY:
Actually, no, I’d prefer you to go first.
PHILLIPS:
Hot potato.
STAPLETON:
(LAUGHS) I was passing this off to Katherine because she’s been in the area a little bit longer than I have, and can talk a little bit more about progress. But what I I’d like to say is that most people that we have worked with in plain. So, one of the things that we do is we provide training to our colleagues across the federal government. One thing that I’ve taken from this training is that people actually want to do better. They want their writing to be clear. They don’t want people to be confused. And so sometimes you go into the trainings thinking that it’s going to be a really a hard sell, but it’s not. People actually crave it. I think oftentimes they don’t have the tools. They don’t know how to do it. And so being able to provide the tools, I think, has been really helpful over the years. And we do it at plain, but you can also find an assortment of folks that are in the nonprofit sector or even the for-profit sector that also provide really good plain language training. And I think that things are improving. I know that we certainly get a lot of requests through the years.
SPIVEY:
Yes, we get a lot of requests, more than we can actually fill right now. But, maybe that will change whenever we get back to the office. What I’m finding that I’m doing is less training and more coaching. So, you know, that is an interesting thing. I mean, at my agency I’m not holding the big classes, but I’m going to teams and I’m working with individuals. And I think that is very powerful, as well as hearing some of the program directors say, oh, we made a special point of getting a language review on this information. To have more of our published material getting plain language review is big. I mean, people they’ve at least heard of it. We’re not starting from scratch when we go in and start talking. They say, oh, we’ve heard of that. Like Katina said, they’re not necessarily sure how to do it, but they at least know the right questions or some of the right questions.
PHILLIPS:
I am thrilled to hear how much demand there is for it so much so that you have a waiting list because that really speaks to the importance of what you’re doing. And it’s the reason I wanted to speak with both of you today, because I was surprised to learn that this initiative existed in the federal government. And I was delighted that it does, because I’ve seen the example you gave of the Australian wildfires is a perfect example of when you have unclear communication not only is it annoying, not only does it sometimes require people to do extra unnecessary work to try to figure out what you were trying to say, but it does sometimes even have life and death consequences. So, thank you both for your work. Katherine Spivey, Katina Stapleton, thank you very much for joining me.
SPIVEY:
It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
STAPLETON:
Thank you.
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