December 15, 2022 • 14 mins
Join Patti Singleton, Division Director for Professional Learning, as she discusses plain language with HDI staff, Bev Harp and Morgan Turner. Learn what Plain Language is, why it is important, and how you can get started with using Plain Language. You can also learn more at plainlanguage.gov
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Episode Transcript
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(00:07):
[Patti] Thank you for tuning in
to the State of HDI,
a University of Kentucky Human
Development Institute podcast.
This is Patti Singleton.
I have Bev Harp
and Morgan Turner in the studio today.
Bev is the project director for HDIs
Innovative Supports for Autistic Workers
and is an autistic self advocate.
(00:30):
Morgan is a program education
assistant with HDIs
Health and Wellness projects.
Today's topic is plain language,
a concept important
when we talk about universal design.
Bev, to start,
tell me what plain language means to you.
[Bev] Plain
Language is
(00:50):
a way of making your writing accessible
to everyone.
Sometimes
we think of plain language
in terms of intellectual disability,
but many other people
benefit from plain language
writing as well.
People learning English
as a second language, maybe.
Really anyone
who is just too busy to read a long,
complicated article at the moment.
People who are in a rush, people
who process information
(01:12):
a little differently.
The idea is to say what you need to say
in simple familiar
terms, using shorter sentences,
shorter paragraphs,
using bullet points where possible
rather than long paragraphs
using headings to separate
different ideas.
The intent of plain language
is to at least somewhat level
the playing field.
(01:33):
The idea
that certain information
and ideas are only for certain people,
the most educated, the most privileged,
is damaging
not only to the individual
but to society.
The US government
acknowledged this with the 2010
Plain Language Act,
which requires
federal agencies to use language
that can be understood by most citizens.
(01:55):
You shouldn't need a lawyer
every time you need
to sign a government form.
Not everyone can afford that,
which is just one of the ways
intentionally obtuse language
gives preference to the privileged.
[Patti] That's a great summary Bev,
and I really appreciate that.
I know that as a mom
and as a professional, it's
hard for me to process
(02:16):
all the information that's thrown at me.
And I often say that
I need plain language
because I need those.
That information
that's being presented to me
to be very clear and concise.
So thank you for that.
So, Morgan, now to you.
Why do you think that we need
plain language?
[Morgan] Well, one, I think we need
plain language to help people.
(02:39):
But then I also feel like
plain language
is a form of universal design.
When you think of what
universal design is, it's
something that
helps people in their everyday life.
And I feel like it's plain language
is universal design, because
if someone says a big medical term
(03:01):
or if there's a long
email or something, you can say,
Hey, I don't understand this.
And then that way,
at least in my experience,
I feel like people will
narrate it in a way
that I can understand.
[Patti] Those are really great points, Morgan.
(03:22):
And we work a lot together on the health
and wellness
in trying to
help people understand
what medical terms
and medical concepts mean.
And that that is so important
that everyone understand
what those what those concepts are.
So, Bev,
if someone was just getting started
trying to make their information
(03:43):
plain language,
where is a good place to get started?
[Bev] The website plainlanguage.gov
has most of what you'll need.
They have a lot of stuff
there and
give examples in writing
and also in videos.
I believe HDI
also has some plain language resources.
Another way to answer this question
(04:05):
is that you should start
from the beginning.
Like Morgan said.
Plain language is a key
part of what we call Universal Design
for Learning,
which is all about providing information
in a variety of ways
so no one is left out.
So if you're teaching a course
about elephants, for example, you're
you're not going to have just a dense
textbook full of facts about elephants.
(04:27):
You're also going to want to have
some pictures of elephants,
videos, graphs, charts,
maybe a podcast that you include
in the course materials.
It's a way of acknowledging
that people have different
abilities
relative to vision, hearing,
cognitive processing, and also different
backgrounds and histories
that impact how they learn.
Or maybe their starting point
(04:48):
is a little different from average
because they haven't been exposed
to the same ideas you have.
So if you really want to be
universally accessible,
you can try writing in plain language
whenever possible.
This affords
the work of having to go back
and make a second version,
and that's a great benefit
of universal design
as it can save you some work later on.
(05:08):
[Patti] Absolutely.
And you really touched on
some of the points
of another part of Universal Design,
which is Universal Design for Learning.
And we do have a lot of those resources,
as you mentioned,
and we'll make sure to post those
in the show notes.
So, Morgan, back to you.
What tips do you have for anyone
writing in plain language?
[Morgan] My tip would be know your audience.
(05:31):
If you're
if you're wanting your audience
to be someone
people with disabilities,
you wouldn't
make long, lengthy paragraphs or...
or
something hard to
to word out.
Or like
long, long sentences and long words that
(05:54):
or big words
that people don't understand.
So I would just say,
know your audience and
yeah, know your audience.
That's really good.
[Patti] And that's a good point
because plain language is more
than just the words that we choose
and the information that we convey.
It's also the organization
and making sure that we're
using headings and
(06:15):
and that,
you know, it looks visually appealing.
So that was really good.
All right.
And and Bev,
so what are some mistakes
you see people making
when they try to write in plain language?
[Bev] The biggest one
I see is leaving out information.
Like the original document
might be 12 pages.
And then there's a plain language
summary of one or two pages.
(06:36):
That's a good start.
And I don't want to discourage
anybody from doing that.
It's way better
than not having a summary.
But writing plain
language is not just about being
using fewer words.
It's not a matter of
just hitting the main points
because we might assume or intended
audience won't be interested
or won't be able to understand.
It's the writer's responsibility
(06:58):
to make sure that everyone
has access to the same information.
And we can do this,
it just takes a little bit of practice.
If there are necessary terms
that might be unfamiliar to some people,
introduce and define them
rather than leaving them out.
Say I
wanted to write about
the autistic rights movement.
I would need to talk about neurodiversity
(07:20):
because it's a key concept.
One way to do that
is to
just to put
a brief definition
in parentheses after the word
if there are multiple terms
that need to be defined.
You can do that
at the end of the document
or at the end of the section.
So when you use a word
like neurodiversity, for example,
the software
you use to check the reading level
(07:41):
may tell you it's inaccessible.
That's okay.
You can sometimes disregard
that on a case by case basis,
as long as you're sure
you've provided
an adequate and accessible definition.
Don't get so hung up on counting
the number of letters in a word;
the number of words in a sentence.
Focus first
on overall clarity of your message.
(08:05):
Another thing is that
we don't want to confuse
plain language
writing with a lower level of formality.
Like if you wouldn't use slang
in the original document,
don't use it in the plain
language version.
Jargon that applies to certain fields,
that is something that you will want
to translate
into regular words for plain language.
(08:28):
So instead of saying a study
of an ethnographic
exploration of the deaf community,
you might say
a study about people who are deaf
and their culture.
So you end up with more words
in that case.
But that's okay
because you've made it clear to people
who generally don't read research papers.
(08:49):
To me, the most important thing
to remember is respect for your audience.
Don't oversimplify
to the point
that you lose
much of the meaning and nuance.
[Patti] Bev I see a broader
use of plain language.
So what does the future look like
for plain language?
[Bev] I've been seing that too; more examples
of plain language in the wild.
It's encouraging.
(09:10):
Some types of information
should always be provided
in plain language,
like public health information,
voting information.
It's easy
to see
how everyone should have access
to those sorts of knowledge.
It's been a little slower progress
in understanding
that all types of information
should be shared in multiple ways
so that we all have access.
(09:31):
Even some medical journals
have started to provide
plain language summaries of articles,
and that's incredible progress over
just the last few years.
I did not expect to see it.
Recently, I saw an article from a lawyer
where she explained
how plain language
could become the standard
for more legal documents,
particularly leases, should be written
(09:53):
so that people are truly
aware of what they're signing.
All contracts should be written this way.
The lawyer who wrote the article
believes that tradition
and resistance to change
are the biggest barriers.
One of my favorite scholars,
Ruell Williams at Purdue,
recently posted a plain language
version of an academic essay
(10:13):
they had written on Facebook.
It was a complex
philosophical essay
titled
Six Ways of Looking at Fractal Mechanics.
Here's a line from the original.
Fractals are structures of recursion
built of lattice
repetitions of micro structures
that intrinsically shape
their superstructures.
(10:34):
They are infinitely expansive
and infinitely contractive.
In the plain language version they wrote:
A fractal is something that is shaped
the same way on the outside
and on the inside.
When you look at it from far away,
it has a shape.
And when you look at it really close,
it's made up of millions of pieces
(10:54):
that have the same shape.
Much easier to
understand, don't you think?
Anyway, Ruell ended up saying that
they kind of like the plain language
version better than the original.
[Patti] No, I think it's a great example
of how plain language
can really broaden your audience.
[Morgan] Yes, I agree.
(11:14):
[Bev] Nice thoughts.
[Patti] All right.
And so, Bev,
any last thoughts before we end?
[Bev] One cool thing that I found
is that using plain
language has helped me as a writer
and as a thinker.
I've always
been drawn to long, complex sentences
full of parentheses and semicolons,
(11:35):
and these are natural
expressions of my autistic
thought patterns.
Quite a few autistic writers do
write similarly,
and there's absolutely nothing wrong
with these ways of expression.
I'll continue to write that way
when communicating with somebody I know.
But we also need to be aware when we're
limiting the audience for our published
(11:56):
or self-published content,
or when we are
or should be speaking
to a larger audience
and people with
disabilities
are certainly a part of that audience.
We have to ask ourselves
some hard questions.
Do I really want everyone
to be able to understand this,
or just a few people?
If I'm limiting my audience
(12:17):
with this language,
do I have a good reason for that?
Am I dressing up ordinary thoughts
in extravagant language,
showing off my education
as if it were some grand achievement
and not largely a function of privilege?
And the question
that's helped me the most:
If you can't put this statement
(12:37):
in plain language,
have you really said anything?
I don't always have an answer for that,
but I think it's an important question
to ask once in a while
when I challenge myself
to translate my more academic
wording into plain language.
I sometimes
find errors in logic or discover that
the statement really
didn't need to exist in the first place.
(12:59):
Unnecessarily complex
language
can be used to deceive and often is.
Did you read the fine
print on the last contract you signed?
You might have tried
that if it was full of double negatives
and some subordinate clauses
and other lawyer speak.
It would have taken a lot of time
and effort to untangle,
and that's by design.
(13:20):
If you're downloading an app
and you're asked to sign a statement
that says it's okay for this app
to know where I am at all times
and to share that information
with anyone,
including local, state
and federal government.
And they can also come
and peek in my window
at night and remove money
from my bank account.
Then you might decide you didn't
need that app so much.
(13:41):
Plain language
doesn't provide cover
for these kinds of deceptions.
It's democratic in this way,
and it invites a redistribution of power.
[Patti] Thank you both for your time
and your insights into plain language.
And we will post
some additional information
(14:01):
about how to start
using plain language in the show notes.
[Morgan] Thank you.
[Bev] Thanks for having us, Patti.
[Patti] Thank you for tuning in
to the State of HDI,
a University of Kentucky Human
Development Institute podcast.
This is Patti Singleton.
I have Bev Harp
and Morgan Turner in the studio today.
Bev is the project director for HDIs
Innovative Supports for Autistic Workers
and is an autistic self advocate.
(00:30):
Morgan is a program education
assistant with HDIs
Health and Wellness projects.
Today's topic is plain language,
a concept important
when we talk about universal design.
Bev, to start,
tell me what plain language means to you.
[Bev] Plain
Language is
(00:50):
a way of making your writing accessible
to everyone.
Sometimes
we think of plain language
in terms of intellectual disability,
but many other people
benefit from plain language
writing as well.
People learning English
as a second language, maybe.
Really anyone
who is just too busy to read a long,
complicated article at the moment.
People who are in a rush, people
who process information
(01:12):
a little differently.
The idea is to say what you need to say
in simple familiar
terms, using shorter sentences,
shorter paragraphs,
using bullet points where possible
rather than long paragraphs
using headings to separate
different ideas.
The intent of plain language
is to at least somewhat level
the playing field.
(01:33):
The idea
that certain information
and ideas are only for certain people,
the most educated, the most privileged,
is damaging
not only to the individual
but to society.
The US government
acknowledged this with the 2010
Plain Language Act,
which requires
federal agencies to use language
that can be understood by most citizens.
(01:55):
You shouldn't need a lawyer
every time you need
to sign a government form.
Not everyone can afford that,
which is just one of the ways
intentionally obtuse language
gives preference to the privileged.
[Patti] That's a great summary Bev,
and I really appreciate that.
I know that as a mom
and as a professional, it's
hard for me to process
(02:16):
all the information that's thrown at me.
And I often say that
I need plain language
because I need those.
That information
that's being presented to me
to be very clear and concise.
So thank you for that.
So, Morgan, now to you.
Why do you think that we need
plain language?
[Morgan] Well, one, I think we need
plain language to help people.
(02:39):
But then I also feel like
plain language
is a form of universal design.
When you think of what
universal design is, it's
something that
helps people in their everyday life.
And I feel like it's plain language
is universal design, because
if someone says a big medical term
(03:01):
or if there's a long
email or something, you can say,
Hey, I don't understand this.
And then that way,
at least in my experience,
I feel like people will
narrate it in a way
that I can understand.
[Patti] Those are really great points, Morgan.
(03:22):
And we work a lot together on the health
and wellness
in trying to
help people understand
what medical terms
and medical concepts mean.
And that that is so important
that everyone understand
what those what those concepts are.
So, Bev,
if someone was just getting started
trying to make their information
(03:43):
plain language,
where is a good place to get started?
[Bev] The website plainlanguage.gov
has most of what you'll need.
They have a lot of stuff
there and
give examples in writing
and also in videos.
I believe HDI
also has some plain language resources.
Another way to answer this question
(04:05):
is that you should start
from the beginning.
Like Morgan said.
Plain language is a key
part of what we call Universal Design
for Learning,
which is all about providing information
in a variety of ways
so no one is left out.
So if you're teaching a course
about elephants, for example, you're
you're not going to have just a dense
textbook full of facts about elephants.
(04:27):
You're also going to want to have
some pictures of elephants,
videos, graphs, charts,
maybe a podcast that you include
in the course materials.
It's a way of acknowledging
that people have different
abilities
relative to vision, hearing,
cognitive processing, and also different
backgrounds and histories
that impact how they learn.
Or maybe their starting point
(04:48):
is a little different from average
because they haven't been exposed
to the same ideas you have.
So if you really want to be
universally accessible,
you can try writing in plain language
whenever possible.
This affords
the work of having to go back
and make a second version,
and that's a great benefit
of universal design
as it can save you some work later on.
(05:08):
[Patti] Absolutely.
And you really touched on
some of the points
of another part of Universal Design,
which is Universal Design for Learning.
And we do have a lot of those resources,
as you mentioned,
and we'll make sure to post those
in the show notes.
So, Morgan, back to you.
What tips do you have for anyone
writing in plain language?
[Morgan] My tip would be know your audience.
(05:31):
If you're
if you're wanting your audience
to be someone
people with disabilities,
you wouldn't
make long, lengthy paragraphs or...
or
something hard to
to word out.
Or like
long, long sentences and long words that
(05:54):
or big words
that people don't understand.
So I would just say,
know your audience and
yeah, know your audience.
That's really good.
[Patti] And that's a good point
because plain language is more
than just the words that we choose
and the information that we convey.
It's also the organization
and making sure that we're
using headings and
(06:15):
and that,
you know, it looks visually appealing.
So that was really good.
All right.
And and Bev,
so what are some mistakes
you see people making
when they try to write in plain language?
[Bev] The biggest one
I see is leaving out information.
Like the original document
might be 12 pages.
And then there's a plain language
summary of one or two pages.
(06:36):
That's a good start.
And I don't want to discourage
anybody from doing that.
It's way better
than not having a summary.
But writing plain
language is not just about being
using fewer words.
It's not a matter of
just hitting the main points
because we might assume or intended
audience won't be interested
or won't be able to understand.
It's the writer's responsibility
(06:58):
to make sure that everyone
has access to the same information.
And we can do this,
it just takes a little bit of practice.
If there are necessary terms
that might be unfamiliar to some people,
introduce and define them
rather than leaving them out.
Say I
wanted to write about
the autistic rights movement.
I would need to talk about neurodiversity
(07:20):
because it's a key concept.
One way to do that
is to
just to put
a brief definition
in parentheses after the word
if there are multiple terms
that need to be defined.
You can do that
at the end of the document
or at the end of the section.
So when you use a word
like neurodiversity, for example,
the software
you use to check the reading level
(07:41):
may tell you it's inaccessible.
That's okay.
You can sometimes disregard
that on a case by case basis,
as long as you're sure
you've provided
an adequate and accessible definition.
Don't get so hung up on counting
the number of letters in a word;
the number of words in a sentence.
Focus first
on overall clarity of your message.
(08:05):
Another thing is that
we don't want to confuse
plain language
writing with a lower level of formality.
Like if you wouldn't use slang
in the original document,
don't use it in the plain
language version.
Jargon that applies to certain fields,
that is something that you will want
to translate
into regular words for plain language.
(08:28):
So instead of saying a study
of an ethnographic
exploration of the deaf community,
you might say
a study about people who are deaf
and their culture.
So you end up with more words
in that case.
But that's okay
because you've made it clear to people
who generally don't read research papers.
(08:49):
To me, the most important thing
to remember is respect for your audience.
Don't oversimplify
to the point
that you lose
much of the meaning and nuance.
[Patti] Bev I see a broader
use of plain language.
So what does the future look like
for plain language?
[Bev] I've been seing that too; more examples
of plain language in the wild.
It's encouraging.
(09:10):
Some types of information
should always be provided
in plain language,
like public health information,
voting information.
It's easy
to see
how everyone should have access
to those sorts of knowledge.
It's been a little slower progress
in understanding
that all types of information
should be shared in multiple ways
so that we all have access.
(09:31):
Even some medical journals
have started to provide
plain language summaries of articles,
and that's incredible progress over
just the last few years.
I did not expect to see it.
Recently, I saw an article from a lawyer
where she explained
how plain language
could become the standard
for more legal documents,
particularly leases, should be written
(09:53):
so that people are truly
aware of what they're signing.
All contracts should be written this way.
The lawyer who wrote the article
believes that tradition
and resistance to change
are the biggest barriers.
One of my favorite scholars,
Ruell Williams at Purdue,
recently posted a plain language
version of an academic essay
(10:13):
they had written on Facebook.
It was a complex
philosophical essay
titled
Six Ways of Looking at Fractal Mechanics.
Here's a line from the original.
Fractals are structures of recursion
built of lattice
repetitions of micro structures
that intrinsically shape
their superstructures.
(10:34):
They are infinitely expansive
and infinitely contractive.
In the plain language version they wrote:
A fractal is something that is shaped
the same way on the outside
and on the inside.
When you look at it from far away,
it has a shape.
And when you look at it really close,
it's made up of millions of pieces
(10:54):
that have the same shape.
Much easier to
understand, don't you think?
Anyway, Ruell ended up saying that
they kind of like the plain language
version better than the original.
[Patti] No, I think it's a great example
of how plain language
can really broaden your audience.
[Morgan] Yes, I agree.
(11:14):
[Bev] Nice thoughts.
[Patti] All right.
And so, Bev,
any last thoughts before we end?
[Bev] One cool thing that I found
is that using plain
language has helped me as a writer
and as a thinker.
I've always
been drawn to long, complex sentences
full of parentheses and semicolons,
(11:35):
and these are natural
expressions of my autistic
thought patterns.
Quite a few autistic writers do
write similarly,
and there's absolutely nothing wrong
with these ways of expression.
I'll continue to write that way
when communicating with somebody I know.
But we also need to be aware when we're
limiting the audience for our published
(11:56):
or self-published content,
or when we are
or should be speaking
to a larger audience
and people with
disabilities
are certainly a part of that audience.
We have to ask ourselves
some hard questions.
Do I really want everyone
to be able to understand this,
or just a few people?
If I'm limiting my audience
(12:17):
with this language,
do I have a good reason for that?
Am I dressing up ordinary thoughts
in extravagant language,
showing off my education
as if it were some grand achievement
and not largely a function of privilege?
And the question
that's helped me the most:
If you can't put this statement
(12:37):
in plain language,
have you really said anything?
I don't always have an answer for that,
but I think it's an important question
to ask once in a while
when I challenge myself
to translate my more academic
wording into plain language.
I sometimes
find errors in logic or discover that
the statement really
didn't need to exist in the first place.
(12:59):
Unnecessarily complex
language
can be used to deceive and often is.
Did you read the fine
print on the last contract you signed?
You might have tried
that if it was full of double negatives
and some subordinate clauses
and other lawyer speak.
It would have taken a lot of time
and effort to untangle,
and that's by design.
(13:20):
If you're downloading an app
and you're asked to sign a statement
that says it's okay for this app
to know where I am at all times
and to share that information
with anyone,
including local, state
and federal government.
And they can also come
and peek in my window
at night and remove money
from my bank account.
Then you might decide you didn't
need that app so much.
(13:41):
Plain language
doesn't provide cover
for these kinds of deceptions.
It's democratic in this way,
and it invites a redistribution of power.
[Patti] Thank you both for your time
and your insights into plain language.
And we will post
some additional information
(14:01):
about how to start
using plain language in the show notes.
[Morgan] Thank you.
[Bev] Thanks for having us, Patti.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!