Write for your audience. Keep sentences short and simple. Use the active voice and avoid the passive. Short words are better than long ones, and don't turn a noun into a verb (personal worst example ever encountered: "enterprising the network").

No, these are not tips from a high school composition class, but reminders for civil servants on how to write from the Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN), newly designated by the Office of Management and Budget as the official interagency working group for the promotion of readability.

Cass Sunstein, administrator for OMB's office of information and regulatory affairs, appointed the group to be the language minders of the federal government in a Nov. 22 memo that's a result of President Obama signing into law on Oct. 13 the Plain Writing Act of 2010.

The act requires that by Oct. 13, 2011, documents necessary for obtaining any federal benefit or service and documents for filing taxes--those which provide information about benefits or services or how to comply with federal regulations--be written in plain language. That means, Sunstein wrote, concise and simple writing that avoids jargon, redundancy, ambiguity and obscurity.

OMB is still preparing final plain language guidance for release in April 2011, but in the meantime, agencies should consult the PLAIN website and prepare to appoint a "senior official for plain writing" by July 13, Sunstein memo states. Under the act, federal agencies must also create a plain writing section of their websites, the plain section accessible from the homepage.

As evidenced by PLAIN's existence, this is not the first time the federal government has attempted to communicate in English rather than bureaucratese. PLAIN came about as part of the Clinton administration's Reinventing Government effort and Clinton signed in 1998 a memo directing agencies to use plain language for benefits and services informational documents by Oct. 1, 1998.

Before and after examples (see table) on the PLAIN website show that the memo must have had some effect over the years, but evidently not enough for Obama and Congress. Civil servants, apparently, have earned an Incomplete in language arts.   

For more:
- download Cass Sunstein's Nov. 22 memo (.pdf)
- go to the PLAIN website, or directly download the Federal Plain Language Guidelines (.pdf)
- buy a copy of "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk and E.B. White

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