Think like a Tui ad!

My husband and I recently took some overseas guests on a tour of the Tui factory in Feilding. When I sent our 'Make your own billboard' effort to friends and family, plenty of laughter and comment followed.

In our circle it was a worthy ‘ad’ that spoke loud and clear. Why? We don't drink.

So the four words from us and two from Tui actually said 'David and Lynda went to the Tui factory. We know they didn't do any beer tasting because they don't drink alcohol. They wouldn't even think of it! Even the thought of them going to a beer factory is odd. But they were pretty good sports to join in the fun’. A 50 word story perfectly told in just 6 words.

Tui ads are a brilliant example of plain English  — a few short words, chosen to convey a powerful message and perfectly pitched to connect with the audience.

So ‘Think like a Tui ad’ is the new slogan at our place. You’re welcome to share it!

Do you take your lists with or without semicolons?

How do you format your bulleted lists?

Many of our clients prefer the traditional legal format that uses semicolons at the end of each bulleted item, with 'and' or 'or' at the end of the second-to-last item. 

Avoid visual clutter

We have a plain English prejudice against semicolons in bulleted lists. Semicolons are ‘visual clutter’. Scientific research suggests that visual clutter impacts on a reader’s ability to focus. People find it much more difficult to recognise things in the midst of clutter.

The most widespread impediment to reading and object recognition … is the mysterious process known as crowding, which is the deleterious effect of clutter ...

Objects that can be easily identified in isolation seem indistinct and jumbled in clutter ... Crowding impairs not only discrimination of object features and contours, but also the ability to recognize and respond appropriately to objects in clutter. [Visual Crowding: A fundamental limit on conscious perception and object recognition, David Whitney and Dennis M. Levi]

Focus on readability

Semicolons make the document look more legalistic, more difficult, and less reader-friendly, which sets the reader up to believe they are going to have difficulty reading it.

So our plain English approach when writing bulleted lists is to leave out semicolons and those extra 'ands' and 'ors'. Instead, we make sure that the context makes it clear how many of the bullet points apply.

If necessary, we change the stem sentence so that the reader can’t be mistaken. For example, we might write a stem sentences that says: 'as long as one of the following applies...'

Small changes can have a big effect on readability and tone.

Decried, defended, and debated

H/T to Johnson, who celebrated National Grammar Day with a link to this nifty infographic.

Courtesy of: Online Schools

A conversation about health literacy with Lorna Bingham, Diabetes Nurse Specialist and Nurse Practitioner candidate, Capital & Coast District Health Board

I had a conversation about health literacy with Lorna Bingham, Diabetes Nurse Specialist and Nurse Practitioner candidate, Capital & Coast District Health Board.

Lorna says that her goal for her patients is that they have the confidence and competence to manage their daily lives while living well with diabetes.

She assures them that they will be able to master the skills to do the daily tasks of diabetes and she supports them until they can.

Health literacy’s role in living well
Diabetes is a complex, long-term condition. It takes its toll over time, so protecting yourself and preventing complications is important.

Living with a long-term condition has two parts — managing the tasks of living well in your daily life, and managing the whole spectrum of your life.

To live well with diabetes requires good health literacy — to understand what diabetes is, what you have to do to take care of your body, and why that’s important.

Small steps every day and good conversations
Diabetes requires people’s attention every day. To support people in their daily tasks, Lorna teaches them about insulin and how to manage their medicines; she teaches them how to recognise problems early so the problems don’t become complications, how to solve them and, of course, how to live well with diabetes.

Lorna develops the health literacy of her patients by normalising the daily tasks of living with diabetes  — testing blood sugar levels, self-injecting, and balancing exercise and diet — and by supporting people while they practise. ‘ It’s important to normalise the daily tasks,’ Lorna says, ‘so that people know how to manage the problems that develop from time to time in any long-term condition.’

It takes time and practice to develop the knowledge, confidence, and competence to manage all aspects of diabetes in your daily life. Lorna believes that given adequate support most people with diabetes can manage most tasks well, most of the time.  It’s a matter of taking small steps, talking and waiting, drawing diagrams, and talking and waiting — and keeping the conversation going.


by Rosie Knight

The answer is plain

Congratulations to ANZ for achieving the WriteMark on their ANZ KiwiSaver investment statement - recently posted to close to 200,000 New Zealanders.

See Plain is the new beautiful on the WriteMark blog for more.

Get off the bus with that language!

I spotted this sign on one of the new Go Wellington buses.

The word ‘standees’ bothered me. I wonder if the sign could just say ‘Please don’t stand behind this line’.

At first I thought they’d made a laughable mistake, and that ‘standee’ meant ‘person or thing being stood on’. But no; Go Wellington has used ‘standee’ correctly. I checked the Oxford Dictionary and I stand corrected. Their use of ‘standee’ is spot on, even if it isn’t commonly used. The big book says:

standee: noun — a person who is standing rather than seated, especially in a passenger vehicle.

But is ‘standee’ plain and clear? If English wasn't your first language, would you immediately get the message? Many bus passengers are new to New Zealand and may not understand it on first reading.

And it’s exactly the kind of bureaucratic language that makes customers feel distanced from the Council, which does so much to serve them. I’m a big fan of the Wellington City Council and its services and amenities.

But this language is absolutely positively not reader-focused!

Moving to client-centred writing

Good ideas unite people. The international plain language network is a group of people who know that plain language is good for business. And they’re generous about sharing their knowledge. This week, Gerry Galacio from the LinkedIn Plain Language Advocates group shared a list of seven case studies and resources, when a member asked how an organisation can manage the change to client-centred writing.

One of Gerry’s case studies was an article by Write’s Christine Smith, ‘Leaving Legalese Behind’ (Clarity Number 61 May 2009, 29–32). Christine tells how AJ Park, a New Zealand intellectual property law firm, started and maintains its plain language programme. In 2013, Christine is still helping our clients change their writing culture, and AJ Park remains committed to clear communication.

Read Christine’s article on pages 29–32 at http://www.clarity-international.net/journals/61.pdf

And look out for more stories from Write in Lynda Harris’s book due out this year. The book will capture the change model and the stories of several organisations that have successfully developed a plain language culture.