Let's use plain language (this time for real)

Question

If you do not wish to read the entire document, please consider reading only the sentences in boldface.

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Introduction

In an earlier post, ELL members discussed the value of writing answers in simpler language.

I looked at some recent answers and comments, and I think that ELL still needs to work harder to give learners a better experience. Many answers include styles of writing that are more difficult to understand than the simplest way to explain the same ideas.

Problem

I notice two kinds of writing that I think we should avoid.

One of them is formal, academic, and literary styles of writing. Many people who give answers on ELL have strong educations. But learners all have different backgrounds, and everyone begins to learn from the simplest words, phrases, and rules. It is easy to forget that the way we often write is more advanced than other ways that explain the same ideas, but are less difficult for the reader.

Let me give you an example. A scholar might explain an idea in the following way:

Historically there has a been a long-standing debate about whether X or Y is the preferred option for case Z, but the consensus has now crystallized to such a degree that X is considered to be obligatory.

Many who are learning English cannot understand this example well. We should try to write it differently, by making the language simpler. We can do so in a few ways. First, we can break the sentence into several smaller ones. Also, we can change some words to ones that are more basic and common. Finally, we can use an active voice in the second person.

Many who are skilled in writing in a formal style realize that they can use it to express very difficult and exact ideas in a beautiful way. It is important that they remember that they can learn how to express many of the same ideas in plain language,

The other kind of writing that I think we should avoid is vernacular and idiomatic styles. Most learners study some idioms, but may have difficulty understanding many others. Idioms change so much over time and are so different from place to place. It may surprise you how hard it often is to understand all of the idioms you may use when you speak to your friends. Think about the most common idioms in English that you hear from people born at all different times and living in all different countries. We should try to avoid any others.

When you speak to friends, many words you say have meanings different from the definitions of the same words that you find in the dictionary. You may say something like the following:

You can probably get away with Y, but that's a bit on the old-fashioned side, so you might want to just play it safe and go with X. This assumes that you are talking about Z.

In the first sentence of this example, you may notice words that might make the reader ask questions. Why is someone trying to "get away" instead of trying to "go away"? Does "old fashioned" refer to the clothes my grandmother wore? Who is going to "play" something, and what is it? A game? An instrument? How can I "go with X"? Would I carry it? Where would I take it?

You might try find reasons by yourself why a learner might have problems reading last sentence.

This example has another problem besides the idioms. The text has many pieces, but does not organize them in a nice order, or explain how they fit together. The text shows how the writer thought about the ideas, but not how the reader would have the least difficulty to understand them. This problem is common in vernacular language.

Vernacular language is how we speak when someone expects us to say something without taking much time to think about it. When a writer does not think about problems for the reader carefully enough to prevent them, the text is often easier to write than to read. We may speak in vernacular language, but we should plan and edit our writing thoughtfully.

Solution

How might we improve on writing answers, to help learners better?

We should write answers in plain language.

When writing in plain language, we think carefully about how to explain an idea in a way that makes it easiest for the reader to understand it. If we try to explain an idea in one way, but then find a simpler or clearer way, we change what we already wrote to make the result better for the reader.

We do not change the idea itself to be simpler, or treat the readers as though they are not smart. Instead, we choose the simplest and clearest language that explains an idea, and that makes it least likely that some problem interpreting the language would cause the reader not to recognize the idea.

An example is the following:

In case Z, you must write X. (A long time ago, people sometimes wrote Y instead, but do not much anymore.)

The example also has a trick that helps the reader. Parentheses make it easier to understand which part of the text is most important, even if the reader does not understand all of the language. When the reader sees items that are not words, but give some of the same information, the reader is more likely to understand the idea. The visual items also work with the reader's' memory, by connecting information that the reader already understands to skills the reader is still learning.

Discussion

Context

Although we should write in plain language, the exact choices we make should depend on the question and its author. An advanced topic has many details, so we may want to use more advanced words and grammar to write about it. Since this kind of topic usually interests someone who already understands English well, we have more freedom when we write about it.

Benefits

If you have never written in plain language, then it may feel difficult in the beginning. But writing in plain language helps you to understand a language better than before, especially your native language, because it makes you think carefully about many of the assumptions and biases that affect the way you use the language. When you apply what you have learned to your speech or other writing, you may find new ways to use the language that you like better than your old ways.

Resources

In 2010, the United States government created rules for using plain language in official documents. It now maintains a web site with guides and other information for writing in plain language. The content is released into the public domain, so you may use it however you want without copyright restrictions. A private company called the Plain English Campaign also provides cost-free guides on the same subject, but you must check the copyright restrictions if you want to make copies.

One important part of writing in plain language is using a style suitable for a particular class of readers. Remember that some text in plain language is not suitable for early learners. When you write for learners, you must remember who they are, while you try to follow the advice from guides.

Answer 1

One thing that your post overlooks that should be highlighted is that ELL is not divided into "askers" and "answerers". In many cases, because they've struggled with the same source of confusion as they were learning English, a learner can explain something more effectively to another learner than a native speaker can. Native English speakers don't automatically know everything about the language and can have questions that might not be interesting for the "serious English language enthusiasts" of English Language and Usage.

The guideline has always been "write to the best of your ability". As a collaborative site, we rely on each other to help make questions and answers clear. However, "clear" doesn't mean "written in the voice and style dictated by someone else" or "written like a textbook". The advantage Stack Exchange has over regular reference libraries is that it is interactive. If a learner doesn't understand something about an answer to their question, they can ask the author to clarify. If the answer's author isn't around, any member of the community can help by writing a better answer, leaving a comment, suggesting an edit, or flagging the post for review among other things.

The ELL community and audience has varying levels of English fluency. While it is helpful to remind people that answers should be in standard English, properly punctuated, and with no misspellings, we should not undervalue having answers written for different levels of fluency, from different perspectives and in different voices and styles. ELL is a global community of people helping each other learn English, not a bunch of volunteers writing an encyclopedia. The posts here should immerse learners in diverse samples of well-written English, not just formal "plain" English.

Authors should not be discouraged from writing in their own voice, or using idioms or colloquial language non-native speakers might find interesting. If the language used makes it difficult to understand the answer, there are feedback mechanisms to correct it. There are comments for pointing out issues or asking for clarification. Answers that are hard to understand won't get up-votes or get accepted by authors and may even be down-voted. Authors that choose to write in "plain" language may be rewarded with up-votes if doing so makes their answer more helpful than an answer that doesn't.

If anything, we should work on encouraging more voting so that authors get more feedback on what sorts of answers are well-received and the sorts that are not. Trying to get everyone to write in the same particular style is neither feasible nor desirable.

Answer 2

As an editor and proponent of what editors call plain language, I feel I have to act as a kind of apologist here, as well as provide possible side commentary to what's already been said.

In the vocabulary of editors, plain language does not mean dumbing things down, nor does it mean changing the meaning of something for the sole purpose of making it use fewer words.

The essential meaning of plain language is to take something and, where needed, rephrase it in such a way that it's more easily understood by the greatest number of people—all without changing the essential meaning of what's being communicated.

This often means reducing the verbiage (in a useful way), but it doesn't have to. Sometimes, the verbiage can be significantly increased.

The best example I have of this is a cartoon that came to my attention just yesterday. It's from Health Literacy Headquarters:

In this example, the amount of text is dramatically increased. However, it's still an excellent example of so-called plain language, because the original text has been taken and rephrased so that its meaning is now completely clear.

As Health Literacy Headquarters says:

When writing about health in plain language, the fact is that sometimes you need a lot of words to tell your readers what they need to know. And while you may feel like this is at odds with your clear communication instincts, it really isn’t!

That sentiment is true of almost every context, not just health. But the point is not just to add words for the sake of adding them, but to add them where adding them aids comprehension.

They give another example where more words make for plain language:

In general, it’s best to fight the urge to use a more complex phrase just to lower your word count. Here’s another example:

You may have swelling at the injection site.
You may have swelling in the place where you got the shot.

Again, more words — but way clearer …

The bottom line: Sometimes, writing in plain language means more words — and that’s okay!

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As further stated by Public Works and Government Services Canada:

The purpose of a plain-language approach in written communication is to convey information easily and unambiguously. It should not be confused with an oversimplified, condescending style. Rather, by choosing straightforward vocabulary and sentence structures and by organizing and presenting your material clearly and logically, you can save the reader time and effort and ensure that your message will be clearly understood.

This applies equally to both native speakers of English as well as to learners of English.

For example:

The following sentence becomes much more transparent if the two verb-noun phrases are replaced with verbs:

not

• The recommendation of the committee favoured continuation of the applied research.

but

• The committee recommended that the applied research continue.

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Saying all of that, I do agree that changing colloquial or everyday English just for the sake of making it "easier" for a learner can be the wrong approach, and, in the long term, could actually hinder the adoption of English.

But there's a difference between using what editors call plain language and avoiding idiomatic expressions.

It's quite possible to include idiomatic language, without dumbing anything down, and still employ clear communication.

Whatever communication we use at other sites is the same communication we should be using at this site. Plain language, as I've expressed it, is a good thing to use everywhere, not just here.

But I think that applying some kind of "simpler" vocabulary at this site alone is the wrong approach.

Answer 3

While loquaciousness for the sake of loquaciousness is obviously a bad thing to have in an answer, I do think taking a common sense approach to writing answers is enough, and don't agree that ELL should have any other rules than ELU or other SE sites.

First off, the underlying assumption - that the asker has a much lower level of English comprehension than the answerer, and the answerer needs to bring themselves down to their level - is fallacious from the get go. SE is not an "ask an expert" site - it's a peer to peer exchange of knowledge, and ideally the same people should be able to both answer the questions they know the answer to, and ask the questions they don't know the answer to.

I fear that if we provide the askers with dumbed-down answers and treat them as having a low level of knowledge of English, it'll discourage a lot of people who are somewhat proficient from asking their questions here. They'll fall into the role of answerers, and when they stumble upon something they don't know they'll think "well, I'm not like those guys, I want a proper answer", ask on ELU, and get unceremoniously booted out of there as ELU tends to do.

Plus, not everyone wants to be treated with kid gloves. Even if you're not very good with English, you're on ELL to get better - and getting a simplified answer feels discouraging, as if the answerer doesn't trust your level of proficiency. I'd rather get a professional answer even if it means I need to do some additional research to comprehend it.

If there is a comprehension problem, the asker is welcome to ask for clarification in the comments, or even follow up with another question. As a bonus, they might get exposed to some new knowledge and pick up a new word or grammatical structure from the answer.

Finally, it's an obligation for answerers, and that means some questions might get unanswered. If I see a question and can answer it, but don't have time or want to expend the effort to simplify my explanation - well, then instead of a possibly too complicated answer you get no answer at all.

Overall - don't assume the asker doesn't know anything but the thing they're asking about.

Answer 4

The suggestion we use "plain language" as described to help English language learners is not a good one. It assumes that those who answer might use confusing language. Some may, there is no way to stop that except by not choosing those answers.

The term is plain language. And the Plain Writing Act was signed into law by Obama.

Here's why it is not a good idea to extol "plain language":

• That system was developed to help readers of government sites understand what can be very tricky regulations, laws and methodologies, etc.
• The system was not developed as a teaching tool for language learners.

The ELL site has learners who range in level of knowledge from beginners to post-advanced.

It's up to the answering posters to gauge that level. This can be done when the questions are posed clearly or well.

Answers should be geared to the level of the question, when possible. A highly involved question can involve formality, literature or even academic writing. The better posters with the best answers generally follow that idea in their answers. These need to contribute to learners acquiring more idiomatic phrasing, more idioms and the vernacular (in speech) as well as learn the difference between what can be spoken language and what is written language.

Naturally, the more experience one has had as a teacher, editor, writer or translator, the better one's answers should be, all things remaining equal.

Answers need to be helpful and, it is hoped, provide information that will encourage those who ask questions to learn more and not discourage them from wanting to go further.

I am not providing pointers here for those who answer questions. This answer is aimed at explaining why the "plain English" option is not suitable for this site.