July 11, 2022 • 23 mins
Deborah Bosley, the founder and principal of The Plain Language Group explains why it’s important for publishers of academic, professional, medical, and scientific content to express information in simple, easy to understand terms that will help them expand their audience to people who have a significant interest or benefit in reading the materials, but lack the academic background required to understand complex, industry-specific language.
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Nicole Tomassi (00:07):
Welcome to Westchester words, education ed
tech and publishing I'm NicoleTomassi, and in this episode,
I'll be talking with DeborahBosley, who is the founder and
principal of the plain languagegroup.
As you may have guessed from thename of Deborah's company, we're
going to discuss why it'simportant for businesses to
express information to theirconsumers in simple, easy to
(00:28):
understand terms, Deborah, it'sa pleasure to welcome you to
Westchester words.
Deborah Bosley (00:32):
Oh, thank you.
I was so delighted to be invitedfor this podcast today,
Nicole Tomassi (00:37):
And we're really glad to have you here and to
learn from you.
So let's begin by having youshare a little bit about your
professional background and howthat led to you starting the
plain language group.
Deborah Bosley (00:48):
I, uh, got a PhD , uh, sort of midway in my life
and, uh, became a technicalwriting professor at UNC
Charlotte, where I was tenured.
And I was there for about 25years.
I call myself an accidentalentrepreneur because plain
language sort of fell into mylap.
(01:09):
The chair of the Englishdepartment asked, uh, me one
day, if I would be interested indoing some work at Firs Union
bank in helping risk managementpeople write proposals to sell
more hedge funds.
Now I had no idea what a hedgefund was.
I didn't know what riskmanagement was, but part of the
(01:30):
purpose of helping them writethese proposals was to get them
out of the mindset of thinkingonly about financial jargon and
instead writing more in, in ahuman capacity.
And so, so that was myintroduction in a way to the use
of, uh, clear writing outside ofacademia.
(01:51):
Uh, from there, I started justgiving presentations uh, the
society for technicalcommunication and others found
out about the center for plainlanguage, which was just
literally beginning at thatpoint and discovered that there
actually was a field of plainlanguage and tech writing is
(02:11):
very similar.
I mean, taking technicalinformation and making it
accessible.
Uh, so while I was a professor,I was also working on developing
my reputation in the plainlanguage field.
And then eventually actuallyjust started The Plain Language
Group.
So when I retired, I moved intothat field completely in 2008
(02:37):
while I was still, of course,being a professor and Dodd-Frank
hit, all these disclosures werenow required to be written in
plain language.
And companies were looking forpeople who had the sort of
impramatur of plain language.
So I started out by callingmyself a plain language expert
(02:59):
companies would Google plainlanguage and my name would pop
up.
And so I took off rather quicklyand then built obviously my
reputation.
So I believe that people have aright to understand information
that affects their lives.
And so I'm in it for the good ofcustomers, citizens, just all of
(03:23):
us who are struggling withoverly complex information every
day of our lives.
Nicole Tomassi (03:29):
Yeah.
There's a lot out there to tryto wrap your arms around and
make sense of, so the easier theterms are to understand it, I
think the better.
Deborah now that you've given usa general overview of how you
came to be a plain languageexpert and the founding of the
plain language group, can yougive us a definition of what
plain language is?
Deborah Bosley (03:50):
Plain language is the use of proven writing and
design strategies that is theirresearch behind it, uh, that
make it easy for your intendedaudience to find information,
understand it, and then use it.
I think in, in a way the threeprinciples are clear, concise
(04:12):
and credible.
So we have research to supportall of the writing strategies
that we advocate, for instance,using the active voice, being
concise, obviously phrasingthings in the positive, using
short sentences, shortparagraphs, et cetera, to avoid
(04:34):
memory load, uh, when people arereading avoiding jargon, or if
it's impossible to avoid it,then at least defining it.
So there there're about 12 to 15strategies that we advocate,
including how something isformatted.
If something looks too dense, uh, you know, you just throw it
(04:54):
away or you delete, or you don'tbother to read it.
So all of the principles and thepractices of plain language are
intended to both get theaudience involved in the
content, but give them contentthat they can easily understand.
Nicole Tomassi (05:11):
I'm hearing a lot of parallels in this and
marketing.
And I find, and especially overthe last several years, I've had
to make content much moredigestible and using those
shorter sentences, shorterparagraphs, more visual
components to make it moreengaging.
Uh, so it seems like they're onsimilar pathways and you had
(05:32):
also touched on this in a Tedtalk you had given where you
explained that content design issomething that needs to be as
easy to understand as the wordsthat are being used.
Why do you feel that having bothmatters?
Deborah Bosley (05:47):
Well, I believe in form and function.
And so the design will firstpull people in.
So if something is formatted andlooks easy, then people are more
likely to read it.
Um, and I think design, and youknow, it's almost a question
(06:09):
that I can't really answer, cuzthe answer seems so obvious when
you read anything other thanlet's say a novel or even in a
textbook, there are designelements in, in photographs or
visuals and a lot of data orinformation for instance is
numerical.
So therefore we advocate for theuse of clear, easy to understand
(06:32):
tables or graphs in different interms of marketing tends.
If you'll pardon me for sayingit this way tends to use visuals
more as a pretty up, or you cansee yourself in it, you look
like me.
Therefore I might read whatyou've written and design in
(06:54):
plain language is, is reallymore involved in helping the
reader realize almostimmediately that they will be
able to understand thisinformation.
So the designs are advocates forclarity as well.
Nicole Tomassi (07:11):
That makes a lot of sense to me.
You had hit on something else inthat Ted talk where you said
that people read with emotionfirst, and then they're looking
for information or data withinthat content that validates that
emotional decision.
Does that hold true regardlessof what type of content they're
reading?
Deborah Bosley (07:29):
Primarily, I'm talking about content that is
transactional or content that isinformational to the extent of
like how much interest am Igonna be paying on my credit
card?
We take about three to four tofive seconds to decide if we're
(07:50):
gonna read something.
I'll use a, an example from a, acase study I did.
So a company sent a letter outto people who were nearing
retirement and it was afinancial institution.
And the purpose of the letterwas to let people know that,
Hey, when you reach a certainage, you have to take a certain
(08:10):
amount of money out of yourinvestments because the IRA
requires it, minimumdistribution option, they call
it.
We did some testing on thisletter and discovered, this is
really the first time where thiscompany said to me, we had no
idea that people had such anemotional response to what we
(08:30):
sent them.
Uh, people who received theseletters, what they saw was the
IRS requires and they freakedout.
They called the company.
They had thousands of phonecalls and actually the intention
of the letter was we reallywanna help you because this is
something you have to do, butthat IRS, it was bold.
(08:51):
It was underlined, and soobviously people experience a
lot of anxiety.
The company wasted a lot of timeand money, but getting back to
the emotional aspect, if youreceive something that you think
is important and you can'tunderstand it, you will become
frustrated, anxious, even theemotion of they're wasting my
(09:14):
time.
Why are they giving me this?
I don't get it.
I don't care.
I don't have time to figure itout.
All of those are emotions thatprevent us from reading content
that could be really importantto us like your mortgage
disclosure, right?
Whoever reads that.
Nobody, if you think about, whenyou read literature, part of
(09:37):
reading literature is theemotional, you know, pulling you
in to the story, the plot, thecharacters, etcetera.
Mm.
So I think we undervalue orunder-represent where emotion
plays a part in our decisionsabout whether or not we're gonna
read something.
And then if it's friendly andhelpful and conversational,
(09:59):
we're more likely to feel likethe company has our back.
And they're engaged with us inhelping us understand.
Marketing people understandabout emotions, right?
, you know, that's whatyou're going for.
Right.
Cause
Nicole Tomassi (10:14):
I understand.
Emotion.
And, and then, and then wedeliver the facts
Deborah Bosley (10:18):
right.
Of course.
And
Nicole Tomassi (10:19):
The same,
Deborah Bosley (10:20):
You know, the same is true here.
Nicole Tomassi (10:22):
So now that we understand a little bit more
about how people take in writteninformation and how the design
of it enhances it, you alreadytouched a little bit on how the
financial industry can use this.
Are there any other industrieswho are legally required to use
plain language in the contentthat they're producing?
Deborah Bosley (10:42):
It depends whether you're talking about
federal regs or state regs.
So I'll just talk aboutregulation in general, all
privacy policies, regardless ofwhat entity they come from, uh,
because of HIPAA are required to, uh, write those privacy
policies in plain language Risa,which is retirement system for
(11:07):
employee benefits that, uh,information written about
employee benefits has to bewritten in plain language.
And so both of those areexamples that would impact
almost anything frommanufacturing detect to health,
to finance.
Uh, you know, I would, I wouldargue that every industry can
(11:28):
benefit from plain language, butI think as far as regulations
are concerned, more and morecompanies are falling under that
requirement, that certain kindsof information be written in
plain language mm-hmm.
And usually it has to do withdisclosures of one form or
(11:48):
another.
And just to throw in one morelittle caveat of, of emotion,
which for me is annoyance.
And that is the fact that theydo it doesn't mean they do it
well.
And there are rarelyconsequences for not meeting the
regulatory requirement for plainlanguage.
(12:11):
So that can be a problem as, aswell.
Nicole Tomassi (12:15):
So there's no enforcement teeth, so to speak.
Deborah Bosley (12:17):
Right.
Unless for some reason it maycome up in conjunction with
another problem within let's saya privacy policy.
Then, then the fact that itwasn't written clearly might end
up being part of it.
But I don't think there areenough consequences for
companies that don't do it,right.
The S E C maybe is a little morestringent, but even there, not
(12:42):
as much, cuz if they did, theywouldn't need to hire me to, or
other plain language experts tohelp them do it.
Confused language is rampant andconfused language causes us as
we said earlier, all theseemotional responses and our
inability to understand criticalinformation in our life.
Nicole Tomassi (13:04):
See there's kind that sort of legislative stick,
if you will, that plain languageneeds to be used in written
communications, but I'm guessingthat there's other benefits that
companies who use plainlanguage, that they tend to see
better outcomes or effects fromusing it.
Is there anything you can diveinto more about that?
Deborah Bosley (13:21):
That's a problematic question only
because companies don't usuallyreveal to me at least what the
outcome is or in terms oftracking, other than perhaps as
I alluded to earlier, what isthe positivity rate of call-ins
or are they getting fewercall-ins they let's say in, in
(13:44):
the case of the example I gaveearlier, when they sent that
letter out, once we revised it,the positive calls went up to
like 96% and this was shockingto them.
And to me, the investors broughtin millions of new dollars
because the letter was helpful.
(14:04):
It was friendly when they calledthe company, the company was
helpful, it was friendly andthey got a positive influx of
profit.
Now I can't say that that's aguaranteed that's gonna happen.
And I can't even say I, weguarantee that your call
negative calls will go downbecause not all companies check
(14:27):
the data of did people callbecause they didn't understand
the letter, but in general timespent is decreased considerably.
So if you send a letter out andpeople understand it, they're
not gonna pick up the phone andtake time.
And in a sense money from thecompany, asking somebody on the
(14:49):
other end to explain it.
But I think the most importantthing is that, and again,
there's evidence for this, thatcustomers tend to trust
companies that don't use a lotof jargon.
They tend to trust companieswhere they understand the
information.
And there was a study done atPrinceton where a psychology
professor was interested in thistopic, took content from very
(15:13):
complex to very easy tounderstand and, uh, tested it
with grad students.
So in their twenties, gradstudents felt that the company
and the writer that producedthat complex information was
being disrespectful and theylost respect for the company and
(15:33):
the writer because they providedinformation that was too
complicated to understand.
So you have reputation, you haveprofit, you have time lost or
gain and you have customersatisfaction.
And I think all those things areexactly what companies want
their brand to represent.
Nicole Tomassi (15:55):
I think you're right.
And, and this kind of seguesinto my next question, cuz some
of the clients that Westchesterworks with many university
presses, academic publishers,industry associations, or policy
groups, the published content,which is highly technical filled
with jargon or reallyspecialized.
And you alluded it to it beforethat, making it more concise and
more clear, it's a compellingreason that they should use
(16:17):
plain language in their content,but is there other reasons why
they should be considering usingplain language
Deborah Bosley (16:23):
As a former academic myself and obviously
published a lot cause otherwise, I, I wouldn't have
continued to be a professor.
I do wanna say this when I wouldwrite an academic article, my
intended audience were otheracademics in my narrow field or
my field of tech communication.
(16:44):
All of whom likely couldunderstand that academic article
because that's who they were aswell in the field and academics.
On the other hand, there's apush now toward, particularly in
the area of science to get whenthere are clinical research or
(17:06):
clinical trials being used thatthat article can be written
scientifically for a scientificaudience, but needs to contain.
And I believe this is arequirement in Britain, actually
in the UK rather needs tocontain a plain language summary
and that plain language summarythen gives non-scientists access
(17:30):
to the information in that studyif they care to read it
personally, I think that wouldbe a great idea for all academic
writing.
We usually are required to writean abstract before the actual
content of the article and, andit, at least that abstract
should be written in plainlanguage.
(17:53):
Uh, I think there's a lot ofinformation that the public
would gain from having access toif they thought they could
understand it.
And, and I think also academicsare sort of perceived as being
the, the old saying in the Us ofliving in an ivory tower and you
know, writing articles or otherpeople read.
(18:16):
But I think there's a, atremendous amount of academic
research that is reallyimportant for all of us in our
daily lives.
So I'm really a strong advocatefor academics, presenting plain
language summaries, even withtheir academic article for their
(18:37):
academic colleagues.
Nicole Tomassi (18:38):
Is there advice that you could share for
companies that are interested inlearning more about how they can
start using plain language andincorporating it into their
business practices?
Deborah Bosley (18:49):
I think it's important for them to recognize
the positive impact it will haveon their business.
In my experience, it starts atthe top, not at the bottom.
So the CEO or the CFO or the CMOor any of the CS or the head of
HR, they have to notice there'sa problem.
(19:11):
And the problem again, couldcome from the number of calls
they're getting, uh, orwhatever.
But I think part of what we dois advocate for the customer
experience.
And I think it's reallyimportant for companies to
recognize that people will trustyou.
You will save money, you willgain reputation.
(19:34):
It's better for your brand.
And you're required in manyinstances to use plain language,
but it really is a win-win forcompanies and for customers, or
if it's a government agency,it's a win-win for citizens.
We have a right to understandinformation that affects our
lives, legally, for example, I,I I'll just do a shout out to
(20:00):
Cigna, uh, who I did some workfor.
They actually had, I won't say aplain language department, but I
would say they definitely had aplain language initiative that
went across the company and theydid training and presentations
and you know, they were reallydoing it right in terms of
(20:21):
getting the company itselfengaged in the whole process,
there has to be a reason why,and then there's a tendency for
it to grow within the company.
Nicole Tomassi (20:36):
So it becomes like a, a, a pillar of the
company's culture, basically.
Deborah Bosley (20:40):
That is the goal.
But nevertheless, I think thereare enough case studies and
there are enough, it there'senough information out there to
explain why it's beneficial toeveryone, for companies to think
much more about plain language,
Nicole Tomassi (20:56):
As we're about to wrap up here today.
I do have one last question thatI enjoy asking first time guests
of the podcast, because I findtheir responses are really
thoughtful.
What is one piece of advice thatyou wish someone had given to
you when you were first startingout in your career or a piece of
advice that you would wannashare with others?
Deborah Bosley (21:15):
Well, this is a piece of advice I wanna share
with people like me in the fieldof plain language, but I think
it, it resonates across manyother areas, which is when
someone asks you to do somethingthat you don't know how to do
say yes, and figure it out.
Nicole Tomassi (21:33):
I've actually done that a few times over my
career and you find out you havethe capacity to learn and grow
from it.
So you can surprise yourself tothe upside.
Deborah Bosley (21:43):
Absolutely, absolutely.
The same with the company sayyes to plain language and then
figure it out
Nicole Tomassi (21:49):
With the help of someone like yourself.
I think they'll have, you know,an easier time on the uptake of
that.
I found this to be a very goodintroduction to plain language,
and I'm sure we'll explore thetopic a bit more in depth in a
future episode, Deborah, Ireally wanna thank you for
taking the time to join me todayon west Chester words.
Deborah Bosley (22:07):
Thank you so much.
I had, I had a wonderful time.
It was a great interview.
Thank you.
Nicole Tomassi (22:11):
You're welcome.
And uh, for our listeners, we'llhave links on the podcast page
of the west Chester website,where you can find the Ted talk
that I referenced earlier, aswell as some of the other
resources that we discussed inthe podcast.
And we wanna thank Deborah forgenerously sharing all that with
us.
And you can also visit Deborah'swebsite to learn, uh, more about
plain language and how you canstart incorporating it into your
(22:34):
communications by visiting ThePlain Language Group.com.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Westchester words.
If you're looking for previousepisodes or want to read
additional content that has beenshared by some of our guests,
please visit our websites.
Westchester publishingservices.com and Westchester
(22:57):
education services.com for aninternational perspective, check
out our sister podcast,Westchester words, UK and
international available on theWestchester education UK
website, Westchestereducation.co.uk or wherever you
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emails at Westchester words atWestchester ed SV, cs.com.
(23:24):
Tell us what you enjoy hearingon our podcast or suggest topics
that we can cover in futureepisodes.
Speaking of future episodes, Ilook forward to having you join
us for the next episode ofWestchester words, when we'll be
having another engagingconversation about a topic of
interest to the education, edtech and publishing communities
until then stay safe, be welland stay tuned.
Welcome to Westchester words, education ed
tech and publishing I'm NicoleTomassi, and in this episode,
I'll be talking with DeborahBosley, who is the founder and
principal of the plain languagegroup.
As you may have guessed from thename of Deborah's company, we're
going to discuss why it'simportant for businesses to
express information to theirconsumers in simple, easy to
(00:28):
understand terms, Deborah, it'sa pleasure to welcome you to
Westchester words.
Deborah Bosley (00:32):
Oh, thank you.
I was so delighted to be invitedfor this podcast today,
Nicole Tomassi (00:37):
And we're really glad to have you here and to
learn from you.
So let's begin by having youshare a little bit about your
professional background and howthat led to you starting the
plain language group.
Deborah Bosley (00:48):
I, uh, got a PhD , uh, sort of midway in my life
and, uh, became a technicalwriting professor at UNC
Charlotte, where I was tenured.
And I was there for about 25years.
I call myself an accidentalentrepreneur because plain
language sort of fell into mylap.
(01:09):
The chair of the Englishdepartment asked, uh, me one
day, if I would be interested indoing some work at Firs Union
bank in helping risk managementpeople write proposals to sell
more hedge funds.
Now I had no idea what a hedgefund was.
I didn't know what riskmanagement was, but part of the
(01:30):
purpose of helping them writethese proposals was to get them
out of the mindset of thinkingonly about financial jargon and
instead writing more in, in ahuman capacity.
And so, so that was myintroduction in a way to the use
of, uh, clear writing outside ofacademia.
(01:51):
Uh, from there, I started justgiving presentations uh, the
society for technicalcommunication and others found
out about the center for plainlanguage, which was just
literally beginning at thatpoint and discovered that there
actually was a field of plainlanguage and tech writing is
(02:11):
very similar.
I mean, taking technicalinformation and making it
accessible.
Uh, so while I was a professor,I was also working on developing
my reputation in the plainlanguage field.
And then eventually actuallyjust started The Plain Language
Group.
So when I retired, I moved intothat field completely in 2008
(02:37):
while I was still, of course,being a professor and Dodd-Frank
hit, all these disclosures werenow required to be written in
plain language.
And companies were looking forpeople who had the sort of
impramatur of plain language.
So I started out by callingmyself a plain language expert
(02:59):
companies would Google plainlanguage and my name would pop
up.
And so I took off rather quicklyand then built obviously my
reputation.
So I believe that people have aright to understand information
that affects their lives.
And so I'm in it for the good ofcustomers, citizens, just all of
(03:23):
us who are struggling withoverly complex information every
day of our lives.
Nicole Tomassi (03:29):
Yeah.
There's a lot out there to tryto wrap your arms around and
make sense of, so the easier theterms are to understand it, I
think the better.
Deborah now that you've given usa general overview of how you
came to be a plain languageexpert and the founding of the
plain language group, can yougive us a definition of what
plain language is?
Deborah Bosley (03:50):
Plain language is the use of proven writing and
design strategies that is theirresearch behind it, uh, that
make it easy for your intendedaudience to find information,
understand it, and then use it.
I think in, in a way the threeprinciples are clear, concise
(04:12):
and credible.
So we have research to supportall of the writing strategies
that we advocate, for instance,using the active voice, being
concise, obviously phrasingthings in the positive, using
short sentences, shortparagraphs, et cetera, to avoid
(04:34):
memory load, uh, when people arereading avoiding jargon, or if
it's impossible to avoid it,then at least defining it.
So there there're about 12 to 15strategies that we advocate,
including how something isformatted.
If something looks too dense, uh, you know, you just throw it
(04:54):
away or you delete, or you don'tbother to read it.
So all of the principles and thepractices of plain language are
intended to both get theaudience involved in the
content, but give them contentthat they can easily understand.
Nicole Tomassi (05:11):
I'm hearing a lot of parallels in this and
marketing.
And I find, and especially overthe last several years, I've had
to make content much moredigestible and using those
shorter sentences, shorterparagraphs, more visual
components to make it moreengaging.
Uh, so it seems like they're onsimilar pathways and you had
(05:32):
also touched on this in a Tedtalk you had given where you
explained that content design issomething that needs to be as
easy to understand as the wordsthat are being used.
Why do you feel that having bothmatters?
Deborah Bosley (05:47):
Well, I believe in form and function.
And so the design will firstpull people in.
So if something is formatted andlooks easy, then people are more
likely to read it.
Um, and I think design, and youknow, it's almost a question
(06:09):
that I can't really answer, cuzthe answer seems so obvious when
you read anything other thanlet's say a novel or even in a
textbook, there are designelements in, in photographs or
visuals and a lot of data orinformation for instance is
numerical.
So therefore we advocate for theuse of clear, easy to understand
(06:32):
tables or graphs in different interms of marketing tends.
If you'll pardon me for sayingit this way tends to use visuals
more as a pretty up, or you cansee yourself in it, you look
like me.
Therefore I might read whatyou've written and design in
(06:54):
plain language is, is reallymore involved in helping the
reader realize almostimmediately that they will be
able to understand thisinformation.
So the designs are advocates forclarity as well.
Nicole Tomassi (07:11):
That makes a lot of sense to me.
You had hit on something else inthat Ted talk where you said
that people read with emotionfirst, and then they're looking
for information or data withinthat content that validates that
emotional decision.
Does that hold true regardlessof what type of content they're
reading?
Deborah Bosley (07:29):
Primarily, I'm talking about content that is
transactional or content that isinformational to the extent of
like how much interest am Igonna be paying on my credit
card?
We take about three to four tofive seconds to decide if we're
(07:50):
gonna read something.
I'll use a, an example from a, acase study I did.
So a company sent a letter outto people who were nearing
retirement and it was afinancial institution.
And the purpose of the letterwas to let people know that,
Hey, when you reach a certainage, you have to take a certain
(08:10):
amount of money out of yourinvestments because the IRA
requires it, minimumdistribution option, they call
it.
We did some testing on thisletter and discovered, this is
really the first time where thiscompany said to me, we had no
idea that people had such anemotional response to what we
(08:30):
sent them.
Uh, people who received theseletters, what they saw was the
IRS requires and they freakedout.
They called the company.
They had thousands of phonecalls and actually the intention
of the letter was we reallywanna help you because this is
something you have to do, butthat IRS, it was bold.
(08:51):
It was underlined, and soobviously people experience a
lot of anxiety.
The company wasted a lot of timeand money, but getting back to
the emotional aspect, if youreceive something that you think
is important and you can'tunderstand it, you will become
frustrated, anxious, even theemotion of they're wasting my
(09:14):
time.
Why are they giving me this?
I don't get it.
I don't care.
I don't have time to figure itout.
All of those are emotions thatprevent us from reading content
that could be really importantto us like your mortgage
disclosure, right?
Whoever reads that.
Nobody, if you think about, whenyou read literature, part of
(09:37):
reading literature is theemotional, you know, pulling you
in to the story, the plot, thecharacters, etcetera.
Mm.
So I think we undervalue orunder-represent where emotion
plays a part in our decisionsabout whether or not we're gonna
read something.
And then if it's friendly andhelpful and conversational,
(09:59):
we're more likely to feel likethe company has our back.
And they're engaged with us inhelping us understand.
Marketing people understandabout emotions, right?
Right.
Cause
Nicole Tomassi (10:14):
I understand.
Emotion.
And, and then, and then wedeliver the facts
Deborah Bosley (10:18):
Of course.
And
Nicole Tomassi (10:19):
The same,
Deborah Bosley (10:20):
You know, the same is true here.
Nicole Tomassi (10:22):
So now that we understand a little bit more
about how people take in writteninformation and how the design
of it enhances it, you alreadytouched a little bit on how the
financial industry can use this.
Are there any other industrieswho are legally required to use
plain language in the contentthat they're producing?
Deborah Bosley (10:42):
It depends whether you're talking about
federal regs or state regs.
So I'll just talk aboutregulation in general, all
privacy policies, regardless ofwhat entity they come from, uh,
because of HIPAA are required to, uh, write those privacy
policies in plain language Risa,which is retirement system for
(11:07):
employee benefits that, uh,information written about
employee benefits has to bewritten in plain language.
And so both of those areexamples that would impact
almost anything frommanufacturing detect to health,
to finance.
Uh, you know, I would, I wouldargue that every industry can
(11:28):
benefit from plain language, butI think as far as regulations
are concerned, more and morecompanies are falling under that
requirement, that certain kindsof information be written in
plain language mm-hmm
And usually it has to do withdisclosures of one form or
(11:48):
another.
And just to throw in one morelittle caveat of, of emotion,
which for me is annoyance.
And that is the fact that theydo it doesn't mean they do it
well.
And there are rarelyconsequences for not meeting the
regulatory requirement for plainlanguage.
(12:11):
So that can be a problem as, aswell.
Nicole Tomassi (12:15):
So there's no enforcement teeth, so to speak.
Deborah Bosley (12:17):
Right.
Unless for some reason it maycome up in conjunction with
another problem within let's saya privacy policy.
Then, then the fact that itwasn't written clearly might end
up being part of it.
But I don't think there areenough consequences for
companies that don't do it,right.
The S E C maybe is a little morestringent, but even there, not
(12:42):
as much, cuz if they did, theywouldn't need to hire me to, or
other plain language experts tohelp them do it.
Confused language is rampant andconfused language causes us as
we said earlier, all theseemotional responses and our
inability to understand criticalinformation in our life.
Nicole Tomassi (13:04):
See there's kind that sort of legislative stick,
if you will, that plain languageneeds to be used in written
communications, but I'm guessingthat there's other benefits that
companies who use plainlanguage, that they tend to see
better outcomes or effects fromusing it.
Is there anything you can diveinto more about that?
Deborah Bosley (13:21):
That's a problematic question only
because companies don't usuallyreveal to me at least what the
outcome is or in terms oftracking, other than perhaps as
I alluded to earlier, what isthe positivity rate of call-ins
or are they getting fewercall-ins they let's say in, in
(13:44):
the case of the example I gaveearlier, when they sent that
letter out, once we revised it,the positive calls went up to
like 96% and this was shockingto them.
And to me, the investors broughtin millions of new dollars
because the letter was helpful.
(14:04):
It was friendly when they calledthe company, the company was
helpful, it was friendly andthey got a positive influx of
profit.
Now I can't say that that's aguaranteed that's gonna happen.
And I can't even say I, weguarantee that your call
negative calls will go downbecause not all companies check
(14:27):
the data of did people callbecause they didn't understand
the letter, but in general timespent is decreased considerably.
So if you send a letter out andpeople understand it, they're
not gonna pick up the phone andtake time.
And in a sense money from thecompany, asking somebody on the
(14:49):
other end to explain it.
But I think the most importantthing is that, and again,
there's evidence for this, thatcustomers tend to trust
companies that don't use a lotof jargon.
They tend to trust companieswhere they understand the
information.
And there was a study done atPrinceton where a psychology
professor was interested in thistopic, took content from very
(15:13):
complex to very easy tounderstand and, uh, tested it
with grad students.
So in their twenties, gradstudents felt that the company
and the writer that producedthat complex information was
being disrespectful and theylost respect for the company and
(15:33):
the writer because they providedinformation that was too
complicated to understand.
So you have reputation, you haveprofit, you have time lost or
gain and you have customersatisfaction.
And I think all those things areexactly what companies want
their brand to represent.
Nicole Tomassi (15:55):
I think you're right.
And, and this kind of seguesinto my next question, cuz some
of the clients that Westchesterworks with many university
presses, academic publishers,industry associations, or policy
groups, the published content,which is highly technical filled
with jargon or reallyspecialized.
And you alluded it to it beforethat, making it more concise and
more clear, it's a compellingreason that they should use
(16:17):
plain language in their content,but is there other reasons why
they should be considering usingplain language
Deborah Bosley (16:23):
As a former academic myself and obviously
published a lot cause otherwise
continued to be a professor.
I do wanna say this when I wouldwrite an academic article, my
intended audience were otheracademics in my narrow field or
my field of tech communication.
(16:44):
All of whom likely couldunderstand that academic article
because that's who they were aswell in the field and academics.
On the other hand, there's apush now toward, particularly in
the area of science to get whenthere are clinical research or
(17:06):
clinical trials being used thatthat article can be written
scientifically for a scientificaudience, but needs to contain.
And I believe this is arequirement in Britain, actually
in the UK rather needs tocontain a plain language summary
and that plain language summarythen gives non-scientists access
(17:30):
to the information in that studyif they care to read it
personally, I think that wouldbe a great idea for all academic
writing.
We usually are required to writean abstract before the actual
content of the article and, andit, at least that abstract
should be written in plainlanguage.
(17:53):
Uh, I think there's a lot ofinformation that the public
would gain from having access toif they thought they could
understand it.
And, and I think also academicsare sort of perceived as being
the, the old saying in the Us ofliving in an ivory tower and you
know, writing articles or otherpeople read.
(18:16):
But I think there's a, atremendous amount of academic
research that is reallyimportant for all of us in our
daily lives.
So I'm really a strong advocatefor academics, presenting plain
language summaries, even withtheir academic article for their
(18:37):
academic colleagues.
Nicole Tomassi (18:38):
Is there advice that you could share for
companies that are interested inlearning more about how they can
start using plain language andincorporating it into their
business practices?
Deborah Bosley (18:49):
I think it's important for them to recognize
the positive impact it will haveon their business.
In my experience, it starts atthe top, not at the bottom.
So the CEO or the CFO or the CMOor any of the CS or the head of
HR, they have to notice there'sa problem.
(19:11):
And the problem again, couldcome from the number of calls
they're getting, uh, orwhatever.
But I think part of what we dois advocate for the customer
experience.
And I think it's reallyimportant for companies to
recognize that people will trustyou.
You will save money, you willgain reputation.
(19:34):
It's better for your brand.
And you're required in manyinstances to use plain language,
but it really is a win-win forcompanies and for customers, or
if it's a government agency,it's a win-win for citizens.
We have a right to understandinformation that affects our
lives, legally, for example, I,I I'll just do a shout out to
(20:00):
Cigna, uh, who I did some workfor.
They actually had, I won't say aplain language department, but I
would say they definitely had aplain language initiative that
went across the company and theydid training and presentations
and you know, they were reallydoing it right in terms of
(20:21):
getting the company itselfengaged in the whole process,
there has to be a reason why,and then there's a tendency for
it to grow within the company.
Nicole Tomassi (20:36):
So it becomes like a, a, a pillar of the
company's culture, basically.
Deborah Bosley (20:40):
That is the goal.
But nevertheless, I think thereare enough case studies and
there are enough, it there'senough information out there to
explain why it's beneficial toeveryone, for companies to think
much more about plain language,
Nicole Tomassi (20:56):
As we're about to wrap up here today.
I do have one last question thatI enjoy asking first time guests
of the podcast, because I findtheir responses are really
thoughtful.
What is one piece of advice thatyou wish someone had given to
you when you were first startingout in your career or a piece of
advice that you would wannashare with others?
Deborah Bosley (21:15):
Well, this is a piece of advice I wanna share
with people like me in the fieldof plain language, but I think
it, it resonates across manyother areas, which is when
someone asks you to do somethingthat you don't know how to do
say yes, and figure it out.
Nicole Tomassi (21:33):
I've actually done that a few times over my
career and you find out you havethe capacity to learn and grow
from it.
So you can surprise yourself tothe upside.
Deborah Bosley (21:43):
Absolutely, absolutely.
The same with the company sayyes to plain language and then
figure it out
Nicole Tomassi (21:49):
With the help of someone like yourself.
I think they'll have, you know,an easier time on the uptake of
that.
I found this to be a very goodintroduction to plain language,
and I'm sure we'll explore thetopic a bit more in depth in a
future episode, Deborah, Ireally wanna thank you for
taking the time to join me todayon west Chester words.
Deborah Bosley (22:07):
Thank you so much.
I had, I had a wonderful time.
It was a great interview.
Thank you.
Nicole Tomassi (22:11):
You're welcome.
And uh, for our listeners, we'llhave links on the podcast page
of the west Chester website,where you can find the Ted talk
that I referenced earlier, aswell as some of the other
resources that we discussed inthe podcast.
And we wanna thank Deborah forgenerously sharing all that with
us.
And you can also visit Deborah'swebsite to learn, uh, more about
plain language and how you canstart incorporating it into your
(22:34):
communications by visiting ThePlain Language Group.com.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Westchester words.
If you're looking for previousepisodes or want to read
additional content that has beenshared by some of our guests,
please visit our websites.
Westchester publishingservices.com and Westchester
(22:57):
education services.com for aninternational perspective, check
out our sister podcast,Westchester words, UK and
international available on theWestchester education UK
website, Westchestereducation.co.uk or wherever you
stream podcasts.
We love hearing from ourlisteners and welcome your
emails at Westchester words atWestchester ed SV, cs.com.
(23:24):
Tell us what you enjoy hearingon our podcast or suggest topics
that we can cover in futureepisodes.
Speaking of future episodes, Ilook forward to having you join
us for the next episode ofWestchester words, when we'll be
having another engagingconversation about a topic of
interest to the education, edtech and publishing communities
until then stay safe, be welland stay tuned.
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