A.) If I had to explain to someone what Plain English Writing is, I would explain the main points in a easy to understand way. Plain English writing is a style of writing that emphases clear, concise communication. What you read is what you get. Plain language writing allows marketers to understand who they are writing for and speak directly into that culture, creating content that evokes a response with that audience. Plain English writing also is inclusive as the writing style is accusable to readers of all skill levels. 42% of Canadians have a reading disability. Due to this unfortunate statistic, plain English writing is one of the most effective ways to write content for readers. A practical example of this is news articles. Depending on the complexity of the content and even headlines, readers can be discouraged, and lost. For example, “A Breakthrough Study Reveals new insights into Cancer Treatment” this statement is complex and uses large more uncommon words to describe the content. Vs the same phrase written in plain language: “New Study Uncovers Better ways to Treat Cancer.” This phrase is clear, concise, and easy for everyone no matter what skill level to comprehend the content and the meaning of the sentence easily, and plainly. Ultimately the purpose of Plan English Writing is to provide clear information and empower the reader during the process.
b.) What makes plain English Writing different? (4 Marks)
When you are writing plain English, you are decently designing a dialogue, where the consumer is the only person you are speaking to. It communicates the clear, easily digestible message/content that your business has created. Plain language is different from just generic writing in the purpose of the style of writing. The purpose of Plan English Writing is to enable the business to provide a solution to the customer’s need/wants. PEW (Plain English Writing) allows the reader to easily find what they need, understand the information, and use the information to solve their needs. Plain language is contextual to the audience you are writing for, For example if the topic is accounting, or dirt bikes, than the plain language writing will be specific to the content, yet still following the style of writing that adheres to this inclusive form of writing.
The general average for the reading and comprehending level in Canada is grade 7/8 (as per class content, week 8). As such PEW provides a standardized style of writing to be clear, concise, and inclusive to all levels of reading, without belittling the reader. PEW is better for reading because what you read is what you get. There should be no complicated sentences, or words used that are not a part of every day language. This is a contextual element to this that the everyday language is subjective to the topic and subculture you are writing for. Knowing your target audience is important when determining the specific words and phrases used in the plain English Writing. The whole point is for the audience to understand what the business wrote and the experience is time effective.
Plain language writing is different because it’s clear, concise, and correct. The content follows SADE which means to the business it Saves time and money. The audience Appreciates clarity, and concise information. The Audience won’t Dread reading the business’s writing. In the writing style the business should Empower the reader, motivating them to act on what they’ve read (class content, week 8). SADE identifies the key elements to Plain language writing and when done correctly demonstrates that the business values the reader’s time, and effort. This can result in a higher engagement rate, click through rate, and overall time spent satisfaction when used on the web. PEW is not damming down the content, it’s about simplifying content, into clear, concise, and digestible content and adds value and is efficient to understand. Simply put, PEW is avoiding any trip ups and barriers that will deludes the main message of your content. (class discussion week 7-8). Due to the risk and high chance of “readers who scan” Plain English Writing promotes a reverse structure where all levels of content are important, but the ranking of importance is from most to less important.
C.) What is plain language writing for the web and in detail and in your own words, why is it important? (4 Marks)
Plain language writing for the web emphasizes common, everyday words, uses pronouns like “you,” uses active speech and short sentences, and writes directly for the reader. This writing style is critical because the average time length a user spends on the web is 53 seconds (Web Builder 2023). Additionally, readers scan the page, and so much content is simultaneously competing for their time. Plain language writing is the best solution to this problem. PLW will not mangily make the business have staller content, but it does ensure that the content is structured to show the reader that their time is valued. PLW has a few objectives that help assist the reader in their goal of solving a need/want problem. These are to enable the reader to easily find what they need, Understand the content, and use what they found to fulfill the purpose of vesting the webpage. These are most effective in offering content that will assist the reader in their life, not take time and effort away from the reader. Most web content can be wordy, too technical, not engaging, or unspecific. PLW for the web structures a clear, concise, and specific structure to information that allows the reader to gain value from the effort spent. Every business wants to have a high engagement rate, click-through rate and so on. However, many businesses fail to understand that PLW is written for the reader to give them the most important information as quickly and as engagingly as possible. This results in increased benefits for the website, when the content offers value and high engagement. Just like in retail, the customer is always right; the same concept is true on the web; the reader needs to be empowered by what they are reading. Readers spend roughly 15 seconds or less deciding whether to engage with a page, so businesses must get their point across as quickly as possible (class content and PowerPoint week 8). PLW is subjective to the audience; however, a few measurable features help guide the business in their writing. Short sentences (15-20 Words) break up the sentences into digestible bits; short paragraphs (5 lines) tend to help group the information into concise blocks of text. Active phrasing and limited passive phrasing help the reader be engaged and feel that the content is currently helping keep the content attractive (class discussion week 7-8).
This is important because it benefits the reader because it assists them in finding what they need, the level at which they understood the information they found, and how they are to use what they found to solve their needs. Research from US-based communications firm Labrador also shows that web readers are approximately 40% more likely to understand text that’s written in plain English — and 34%
more likely to say that your copy is well-written or organized ( Class PowerPoint Week 8).
This improved the open rate, click rate, and read length, resulting in improved SEO, and Google can recommend your content. Resulting in increased customer satisfaction and overall saving time and effort for the reader, demonstrating how the business values the customer’s time. (class content week 8) Using convoluted language on the web also interferes with your customer journeys, affecting the business’s conversion rate. No matter how people are about your content, you need clear and simple text to help when navigating your website; it’s the business responsibility to understand what you want the customer to do, develop content that is highly effective, and motivate the reader to work their way through the conversion funnel. The end purpose of developing content is to have your business solve the problem the reader has and position your business in the role of solving said problem. The fact is that readers scan and will not read every word on the website, so the challenge is how to get this done. The solution is plain language writing, which positions the content, especially for scanners and structures the content in an inverted pyramid style with the most important content at the top and the varying levels of importations following underneath.
Plain language also has many organizational benefits for businesses publishing their content on the web. Firstly, this saves time and money due to the convivence and quicker writing ability. Less can be more in this context. The messages written can also be clearly understood, saving time and effort with B2C communication (e.g., customer support calls, clarifying customer emails, etc.) Overall, this results in customer satisfaction. The structure of the content assists greatly with SEO due to the scalability, keywords, headlines, and structure of content.
Beyond the SEO and good web structure practises, Plain language writing is important because The general population has an average reading level of grade 7/8 students. Due to this, in order to be effective, inclusive, and develop content with no boundaries, the content businesses should write in should have a readability score of 60 or higher, 4% or less written in a passive voice, 5% or less long sentences, and 1% of less complex language used in order to be effective (Class PowerPoint Week 8). This style can target a wide range of readers (academic, ESL readers, etc.). It’s made to include everyone and allow everyone to understand and learn from the content. It’s great for your business and leaves the reader feeling like they can trust the business. They often have a higher level of trust in transparency and credibility as well (class discussion week 8).