Oxford Guide to Plain English

Cover
OXFORD GUIDE TO Plain English: FIFTH EDITION
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Starting points
	What’s the problem?
	Guidelines not rules
	What’s meant by plain English?
	Does plain English work?
	UK consumer contracts—plain English required by law
	How you may want to use this book
The thirty guidelines
Summary of the twelve main guidelines
	1—Plan before you write.
	2—Organize your material so readers can see the important information early and navigate the document easily.
	3—Make the average sentence length 15–20 words.
	4—Use words your readers are likely to understand.
	5—Use only as many words as you need for meaning and tone of voice.
	6—Prefer active-voice verbs unless there’s a good reason for using the passive.
	7—Use good verbs to express the actions in your sentences.
	8—Use vertical lists to break up complicated text.
	9—Put your points positively when you can.
	10—Put accurate punctuation at the heart of your writing.
	11—Use good grammar, but relax—you don’t need to know hundreds of grammatical terms.
	12—Check your material before the readers do.
1: Planning comes first
	Getting started with a plan
	Creating a core statement and horizontal document plan
	Alternative approaches to planning
	Strategic planning: learning from readers
		Pre-production stage
		Production stage
		Post-production stage
	Finally
2: Organizing your material in a reader-centred structure
	Model 1: Top-heavy triangle (‘news triangle’)
	Model 2: Problem-cause-solution
	Model 3: Chronological order
	Model 4: Questions and answers
	Model 5: S-C-R-A-P (Situation, Complication, Resolution, Action, Politeness)
	Model 6: S-O-A-P (Situation, Objective, Appraisal, Proposal)
	Model 7: PARbox emails
	Model 8: The 5 P’s (Position, Problem, Possibilities, Proposal, Packaging)
	Model 9: Correspondent’s order
	Model 10: Full-dress report
		Title
		Contents list
		Summary
		Introduction
		Discussion
		Conclusions
		Recommendations
		Appendices
	Finally
3: Writing short sentences and clear paragraphs
	Split and disconnect
	Split and connect
	Say less
	Use a list
	Cut verbiage
	Start afresh
	Developing paragraphs from topic sentences
	Other common paragraph patterns
4: Preferring plain words
	Is there no place for unusual words?
	Use simpler alternatives
	Reorganize the sentence
	Examples of good plain words that show empathy
	Adjusting the style to the audience
	Conquering fear
	Plain English word list
	Frequency count
5: Writing concisely
	Striking out useless words (padding)
	Pruning the dead wood, grafting on the vigorous
	Shortening wordy prepositional (‘prep’) phrases
	Rewriting completely
	Test your word-saving skills
6: Favouring active-voice verbs
	Recognizing active-voice verbs (‘active verbs’, for short)
	Recognizing passive-voice verbs (‘passive verbs’, for short)
		Parts of the verb ‘to be’
		Past participle
	Converting passives to actives
	Why the active should be your first choice
	Using ‘I’ or ‘we’ in formal reports
	Warning: passives can be useful
	Checking your passive percentage
7: Using vigorous verbs
	Nominalization linked to parts of ‘to be’ or ‘to have’
	Nominalization linked to active verbs or infinitives
	Nominalizations linked to passive verbs
	When the going gets tougher
8: Using vertical lists
	Keeping the listed items in parallel
	Punctuating the listed items
	Numbering the listed items
	Seeing the possibility for vertical lists
9: Converting negative to positive
	Some uses for negatives
10: Using good punctuation
	Full stop (.)
	Comma (,)
	Colon (:)
	Semicolon (;)
	Dash (–)
	Square brackets [ ]
	Brackets ( )
	Capitals
	Hyphen (-)
	Apostrophe (’)
	Possession
	Ellipsis (…)
	Quotation marks (‘‘ ”) or (‘ ’)
	Exclamation mark (!)
	Question mark (?)
11: Using good grammar
	Examples of bad grammar: a quiz
12: Keeping errors in Czech: its time to Proof read
	What is proofreading?
	Proofreading on screen
	Proofreading on paper
	Common sources of error
	Checking against copy
	For the professionals
	When in doubt
13: Dealing with some troublesome words and phrases
	Troublesome words and phrases
	Words often confused
14: Using or avoidingforeign words
15: Undoing knotty noun strings
16: Reducing cross-references
17: Exploring and exploding some writing myths
	Myth 1: Never start a sentence with ‘But’ (or similar conjunctions)
	Myth 2: Never put a comma before ‘and’
	Myth 3: Never end a sentence with a preposition
	Myth 4: Never split your infinitives
	Myth 5: Never write a one-sentence paragraph
	Myth 6: Write as you speak
18: Avoiding clichés
19: Pitching your writing at the right level
	Average reading age
	Examples of text written at the average level
	Readability tests that can help you check the level of difficulty
	Drawbacks and uses of readability tests
20: Writing sound starts and excellent endings
	Trap 1: Writing an unfinished sentence
	Trap 2: Repeating the heading
	Trap 3: Archaic language
	Finishing well
	Conventions on opening and closing
21: Creating better emails
	Planning and structure
	Standards to follow
	Formality in the text
	Checking carefully
	Abbreviations, emojis, and emoticons
22: Using inclusive language
	Neutral language
	Disability language
	Language of ethnicity and skin colour
	LGBT, etc. on business forms
	Transgender language
23: Using alternatives to words alone
	Other possibilities with text and tables
		The focus group’s verdict
	Decision trees
	Strip cartoons
24: Caring enough about customers to write to them clearly
	Even the regulators screw up
	It’s that full-stop problem again
	What good writers do
25: Overseeing colleagues’ writing
	Working with the team
	Making the right interventions
	Final thoughts
26: Writing better instructions
	Principle 1: Remember the readers
	Principle 2: Favour a basic style of language
	Principle 3: Split the information into chunks
	Principle 5: Use clear illustrations with good labels and captions
	Principle 6: Test with typical users
27: Clarifying for the Web
	Get help and plan
	Create scannable text
	Build attractive and accessible pages
		Organizing material well
		Page design: key points
	Help people find your site: the essentials
	Check your site thoroughly for errors, nonsense, and officialese
	Cut waffle to make the text more scannable
28: Making legal language lucid
	Changes under way
	What else can be done about legalese?
	Replace or remove legal flavouring
	Chop up those snakes
	Put people into the writing
	Add some relevant headings
	Plainer writing, clearer judgments
	Invasion of the Fog People
29: Writing low-literacy plain English
	Who needs this kind of writing?
	Testing is the key
	Preparing low-literacy materials
	Using difficult terms
	Language that’s dumbed down or cleared up?
	Numbers: figures or words?
	Accuracy: gains and losses
	Proofread carefully
	Type size and style
	Adding a contents page and summary to longer documents
	Examples: transforming text into low-literacy English
	Pictures and gestures
	Effects of plain English
	Getting professional help
	Web writing
30: Clarifying page layout: somebasics
	What’s the best way to get a feel for good layout?
	In paper documents, what’s a good page size to use?
	What are the key variables to control for high legibility?
	So which is the best typeface to use for high legibility?
	How should type be used to emphasize words?
	Any hints on the use of white space?
	Is it a good idea to reverse out the type?
	Should type be printed on a coloured background?
	Is it a good idea to track or scale the type?
	What does ‘hierarchy of headings’ mean?
	Should I use justified type?
	Does colour help?
	What paper should I use?
	Doesn’t decent layout cost more?
Appendix 1: Commonest words
Appendix 2: A Short History of Plain-English Moments
	Recent times: the US
	Recent times: the UK
	Recent times: other countries
	Promoting plain language internationally
Sources and notes
	General Sources
	Legal Language
	Specific Sources and Notes
		Starting points
		chapter 1
		chapter 2
		chapter 3
		chapter 4
		chapter 5
		chapter 6
		chapter 13
		chapter 14
		chapter 17
		chapter 18
		chapter 19
		chapter 21
		chapter 22
		chapter 25
		chapter 26
		chapter 27
		chapter 28
		chapter 30
		Appendix 2
Index