At The Media Online we support the move to eliminate meaningless business jargon, convoluted sentences and long, complicated words from the plethora of written material we are all faced with on a daily basis. We have in the past featured several of Caryn Gootkin’s columns on plain language in both the legal industry and general business communication.
“Writing in plain language is not only a legal requirement; it also makes good business sense. Join our quest to free the written word from the tyranny of pompous and passive prose,” says Gootkin.
October 13 is the first International Plain Language Day. To mark this day, TheMediaOnline and Caryn (of in other words) will publish a special plain language issue. We’ll explore the principles of plain language and give you guidelines on how to write in a way that is clear and accessible to your readers. Caryn’s basic plain language toolkit will follow on from her three previous plain language posts.
Our challenge to you
We are holding a plain language challenge in the build-up to International Plain Language Day. In her previous column on bad writing and the Standard Bank brand, Caryn gave examples of replies by a bank employee to complaints about the bank on hellopeter.com.
Rewrite these three short communications in plain language and stand a chance to win a two-day Plain Language course run by John Linnegar of McGillivrayLinnegarAssociates. To enter, please email your plain language versions to editor@themediaonline.co.za by no later than 5pm on Friday October 7. Use ‘plain language’ in the subject line.
John will judge the entries and we’ll publish the winning entry, together with John’s explanation of why he chose that version, on October 13 2011.
About John Linnegar
John has been active in the publishing industry for almost 30 years, as editor, proofreader, technical writer and industrial editor. Since October 2000 he has been presenting courses on various aspects of copy editing and proofreading. John has also written a practical guide to South African English called Engleish Our Engleish: Common errors in South African English and how to resolve them.
The challenge
See how many grammatical and plain language transgressions you can spot in the three letters below. In fact, point them out in the comments section below. Let’s see if we can find the simplest and most-straightforward way of conveying these messages. The best rewrites will be featured in our International Plain Language Day edition on 13 October.
1.
“With reference to my closing call to you, there was consensus that the matter was dealt and no hesitance was evident at the time from you.
We assure you that we regard our service delivery of at most importance and will strive to deliver even better service to our customers going forward.
As previously advised, should you experience any dissatisfied service delivery, you are most welcome to contact me directly and urgent assistance shall be provided to you.”
And two more from the same writer:
2.
Please be advised that further details have been requested from you in order for us to address your concerns.
We await you response.
and
3.
With reference to our telephonic discussion earlier, we do sincerely apologise for the service break down experienced. The matter was addressed with the relevant parties in order to prevent any similar re-occurrences of this nature.
I trust you find the above in order.
Kind regards
Ms A*
Complaint Resolution Centre
