People should notice a change in government writing starting this year. Federal documents should be clearer, shorter and easier to understand. Beginning Jan. 1, 1999, all agencies were to use plain language in writing. That goes for proposed and final rules published in the Federal Register as well.

The plain prose push is part of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, headed by Vice President Gore. President Clinton announced the effort in a memo to all agencies last June. He set up a PLAN – Plain Language Action Network – to coordinate the effort. The timetable called for all agencies to begin using plain language by the start of this year.

The president said the new effort will help reinvent government to make it more responsive, accessible and understandable to the public. “By using plain language, we send a clear message about what the government is doing, what it requires, and what services it offers,” he said. “And plain language saves the government and private sector time, effort and money.”

Vice president Gore said the use of plain writing is crucial. “Plain language helps create understanding, and understanding helps create trust. And trust is essential to solve the common problems we face,” he said.

Last summer, Gore established an award to recognize employees who convert burdensome bureaucratese to plain English. Each month he presents a “No Gobbledygook Award” to one or more persons for outstanding examples.

But will this new effort succeed? After all, government programs come and go – by the hundreds and thousands. And government writing in the past has seemed to have a fixation for fogginess.

So far we have some bright indicators for the new effort. First, it reaches across all federal agencies. Second, it has high priority as part of the reinvention project. Third, the vice president’s award program keeps it in the forefront.

Finally, there is the language itself that PLAN uses. It’s clear. It’s simple. It’s easy to understand. The plain language proponents practice what they preach. So it’s not hard for folks to believe that the government is serious.

For instance, PLAN says government should use “common, everyday words, except for necessary technical terms.” That’s easy to understand in itself. PLAN says we should use “‘you’ and other pronouns.” They put faces on people and help establish ownership. PLAN says we should use “the active voice.” Active verbs put life into phrases and help create personal identity. Abstract or passive terms, on the other hand, foster detachment and dissociation.

And PLAN says we should use “short sentences.” They save energy because the human brain works like a computer in one way. It processes information in bits and chunks. If the chunks are short and clear, the brain can work at tremendous speed. But when we get large, complex chunks, our brains slow down to process them. Masses of mumbo-jumbo create a brain drain on a reader’s energy.

The PLAN guidelines are also similar to the principles of good journalism. Clear and simple words, short sentences, and active voice. Those are the simple tools and golden rules for effective communication.

Leading journalism schools, like the University of Missouri, still use the Ten Principles of Clear Statement of the Gunning-Mueller Clear Writing Institute, Inc. The best schools and teachers still follow guidelines of 50 years ago. Columbia University Prof. Rudolf Flesch designed a formula to measure the readability of writing. He built it on scientific research by the school. Flesch’s book, The Art of Readable Writing, was reprinted several times and is still stocked in most libraries.

Some people in highly technical fields balk at efforts to write about their fields in plain terms. Not all writing has to be in common, everyday language. It depends on the audience, as the president noted in his memo. “Plain language requirements vary from one document to another, depending on the intended audience,” he said.

So a writer for a geophysics journal can use scientific terms and jargon of the trade. Subscribers in that field will understand. Yet the best and most widely read publications, even in specialty fields, still use clear, concise sentences. Scientists and experts who want to get their messages across know they must use language that their readers don’t have to labor over to decipher.

I remember a quote I read years ago attributed to Albert Einstein. I couldn’t trace the source recently, but it went something like this: “If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

In the case of government writing, we should consider the general public as our audience. If we write like newspapers and most magazines, we’ll reach the widest readership. More people will like the writing and be able to understand the topic.

At an awards program last year, Gore cited a rule that Pres. John Kennedy had in the White House. “Never use a word with three syllables if you can use a word that has two.”

People violate the rule against complexity more than any other rule when we write. The Ten Principles guide says, “We use three words where one would do.” And we use four-syllable words that fog-up our writing – like “utilization” instead of “use,” or “modification” instead of “change.”

Vice president Gore said times have changed. He gave a humorous quote by former baseball great Yogi Berra who said, “The future isn’t what it used to be.”

Plain language is part and parcel to good government. “By examining our phrases, we will be forced to re-examine the original purpose of our rules and regulations,” Gore said. “By doing that, we will reinvent government itself.”

So the outlook for the future is bright. Federal rules that affect people and business should be much easier to understand in the future. Government should become more efficient and people friendly. It will save considerable costs and resources. And people may begin to trust government more.

(Jack Odgaard, editor)