Articles by our team and others
New Articles
“Clear as mud” (2010)
This article was first published in the January 2010 issue of the International Travel Insurance Journal (http://www.itij.co.uk/). With small print in insurance policies hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons, Martin shares his 10 top tips on how to write insurance policies that don’t require a translator or insurance expert to understand them.
“Avoiding ambiguity” (2009)
In the last of his 3 articles for the newsletter of the British and Irish Ombudsman Association, Martin Cutts provides some practice in spotting ambiguities.
“British undergraduates make three times as many errors in English as do ones from overseas” (2009)
First published in the Winter 2009 (no. 103) issue of Quest, the journal of the Queen's English Society, Dr Bernard Lamb's new article reports his latest research findings. On average, the home students whose work Dr Lamb studied made three times more errors in English than did the overseas students, who had been taught better, had been corrected much more often, and who took English more seriously than did the home students.
“Towards a better readability measure: the Bog index” (2009)
Editor Software’s plain-English editing software, StyleWriter, has a new readability measure – the Bog index – so called because it measures how writing can bog down the reader. The key feature of the Bog index is a graded 200,000-word dictionary. In this article, Nick Wright, Director of Editor Software and co-designer of StyleWriter, describes this new readability measure and puts it through its paces.
“Instructions for consumer products – as easy as 1-2-3?” (2009)
Instructions for consumer products should be clear and easy to follow. Martin Cutts examines 4 instruction manuals for chainsaws and finds that their text and illustrations are often difficult for novices to understand. He suggests some simple ways of clarifying them.
Legal English
“ASBO English: clear or baffling?” (2009)
Antisocial behaviour orders in England and Wales are increasingly being breached. Might one factor be that ASBOs are written unclearly, using archaic language, so that recipients don’t understand fully what they must or mustn’t do, or feel alienated from the producing body? In this article, Sarah Carr and Martin Cutts investigate by analysing 6 ASBOs, seeking lawyers’ views on the clarity of ASBO English, and rewriting 2 ASBOs in plain language.
“How to make laws easier to read and understand” (2008)
Laws are often too complicated. In this article, Martin Cutts shows some ways of making them clearer. It says laws should be written at a level that ordinary citizens, not just the legal fraternity, can read and understand. It also points out that there has been a glut of new law — some 172,000 pages from 1992-2005 and that both the authorities and the population find this overwhelming.
“Keeping errors in Czech” (2007)
In this article, first published in issue 58 of Clarity (November 2007), Martin Cutts:
- reflects on his pipe dream to convince lawyers to proofread their letters and emails before sending them to clients
- recounts some examples of poor proofreading
- offers practical hints to authors on how to proofread better.
“Less taxing laws” (1995)
Laws should be written in clearer English, argues Martin Cutts in this short piece based on an article in The Times in 1995.
Administrative English
“How not to write like a barbarian” (2009)
In the second of a series of 3 articles for The Ombudsman, the newsletter of the British and Irish Ombudsman Association, Martin Cutts describes some common pitfalls in business and official writing and how to avoid them.
“Long sentences mean hard labour” (2009)
Martin Cutts was asked to write a series of 3 articles for The Ombudsman, the newsletter of the British and Irish Ombudsman Association (BIOA). In this first article, Martin offers simple tips on writing clearer letters. He uses the tale of the ‘man who referred a matter to the ombudsman about some horrible horsing about at Equestrian Life Mutual where, like a foolish virgin from the Scriptures, he'd invested his savings on winded nags posing as triple-A-rated stallions’.
“Administrative language in the UK: 18 months in Pikestaff features” (2008)
In this article, Sarah Carr uses headlines — covering good and bad news stories — from our newsletter, Pikestaff, to illustrate recent UK developments in national and local government. Sarah wrote the paper to present at a conference at Ruhr University, Germany, in August 2008.
“What readers want” (2007)
by Judy Brown
Putting the reader first is the key to effective writing. This article lists the main points of style, structure and layout that readers say they find helpful in information leaflets.
“Writing plain language in the public service” (2003)
It’s not easy to write clearly for a mass audience. This short piece by Martin Cutts, based on an article on The Guardian’s website in 2003, sets out some simple guidelines and applies them to a local council’s letter.
Jargon
“Technical jargon: an approach, an idea and an offering” (2006)
Sarah Carr is interested in using plain English to tackle jargon. In this article for the international journal Clarity, she looks at:
- different types of jargon, and their value and dangers
- how to deal with technical jargon
- grammatical terms for verb forms in English, as an exercise in explaining some linguistic technical jargon.
The article was first published in issue 55 of Clarity (May 2006).
Readability
“How clear are the style and language of Facebook’s Principles and Terms of Use?” (2008)
BBC3 commissioned us to report on the readability of Facebook’s Principles and Terms of Use. We used our specialist software and skills in analysing style and language to assess the clarity of this text. The report was used in a documentary (‘Mischief — Your Identity for Sale’), shown at 9pm on 11 September 2008.
“Writing by numbers: are readability tests to clarity what karaoke is to song?” by Martin Cutts (2008)
Readability tests offer an easy and relatively cheap way of assessing the apparent level of difficulty of a document. Though their simplicity and scientific veneer make them attractive for propaganda, the tests are crude. This paper suggests that discussion groups and one-to-one interviews are better for assessing clarity. Yet these methods are usually feasible only where cost and speed are not important. So when deciding whether a document is pitched at an appropriate level for its readers, editorial judgement based on experience will usually be the best aid. A readability-test score should be only a minor factor in making that judgment.
Standards of English
“Talking turkey al Tesco: chewing the fat about a retail notice” (2008)
In Pikestaff 11 (December 2007), we announced a Christmas competition: to rewrite a short seasonal text, a notice spotted in Tesco. We announced the winner in Pikestaff 12 (January 2008) — lawyer Clive Wilson, of Corrs Chambers Westgarth, a law firm in Melbourne, Australia. In this article, Sarah Carr uses our process method as a framework to:
- examine the original text
- analyse how the winner and others tackled it.
“Cows inseminated by seamen: errors in the English of highly selected undergraduates” (2007)
Dr Bernard Lamb has taught genetics at Imperial College for many years and has noticed a downward drift in writing standards among his undergraduates. This article lists some of the errors they make. Dr Lamb says of his latest survey: ‘The students best at English were the Singapore Chinese and a Bruneian; some UK students were good, making only a few errors. The worst were UK-raised and usually of British ancestry. It is not a matter of intelligence, as the three final-year students who made the most errors obtained two firsts and an upper second class honours degree this summer; all three are UK-raised women of British ancestry.’
Getting to grips with grammar
“Linguistic lingo for lawyers: word classes” (2008)
Sarah Carr is writing a series for the international journal Clarity explaining various linguistic terms used in English grammar. In this article, she looks at open and closed word classes, and the relevance of these and related terms to plain language.
The article was first published in issue 59 of Clarity (May 2008).
“Linguistic Nasties and Niceties: Who should we pander to? Or to whom should we pander?” (2007)
Sarah Carr and Martin Cutts look at linguistic conventions in English that readers may think of as ‘rules’. They discuss whether it is clearer to go:
- with convention — to avoid distracting ‘sticklers’ by making them think the writer has broken the rules
- against convention — to meet other plain-language guidelines more effectively.
All their examples are real, taken from UK newspapers, and public and business documents. The article was first published in issue 57 of Clarity (May 2007).
“Linguistic lingo for lawyers – personal pronouns and gender: a dialogue” (2007)
Following Sarah Carr’s article on personal pronouns and gender in issue 56 of Clarity (November 2006), Dr Robert Eagleson (a plain-language consultant and former professor of English language, in Sydney, Australia) contacted her. This article, published in issue 58 (November 2007), reports the salient points of their dialogue on the topic.
“Linguistic lingo for lawyers – ‘person’ and other grammatical terms for personal pronoun forms in English” (2006)
Sarah Carr is writing a series for the international journal Clarity explaining various linguistic terms used in English grammar. In this article, she looks at:
- the term ‘person’ in English grammar
- other grammatical terms for personal pronoun forms, including ‘gender’, ‘number’ and ‘case’
- the relevance of these terms to plain English.
The article was first published in issue 56 of Clarity (November 2006).
Spoken English
“Speaking to be understood” (2009)
In this article originally published on the website of the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA), Sarah Carr looks at the art of plain speaking. The article draws on examples from the Romans to modern politicians — including Barack Obama — not to mention Jack Sparrow, star of Pirates of the Caribbean.
Fibs, foibles and fallacies: some notes on Plain English Campaign Ltd
“Paying the price for crystal balls” (2007)
In the light of research by the National Audit Office, Martin Cutts offers some thoughts on schemes that accredit the clarity of public documents; describes how the Department for Work and Pensions was bitten by a plain-English guarantee that didn’t deliver the goods; and wonders why the failure of the Crystal Mark scheme to fulfil its promises has been so richly rewarded by the department.
“Pupils see through the Internet Crystal” (2007)
Great claims are made for the Internet Crystal Mark, a logo that appears on websites supposedly written in plain English. Recently, a teacher complained that sites bearing the crystal were full of poor English. This article reveals the remarkable results of our investigation.
“Plain English Awards scandal: It’s clearly no contest as trophies for plain words go to promoter’s own customers” (2007)
Behind the annual Plain English Awards contest is a web of business relationships worth at least £500,000 between the promoter and several winners of its competitions.