Oxford Guide to Plain English

Plain English is the art of writing clearly, concisely, and in a way that precisely communicates your message to your intended audience. This book offers expert advice to help writers of all abilities improve their written English. With 30 chapters, each centred around a practical guideline, its coverage is extensive, including lessons on vocabulary, punctuation, grammar, layout, proofreading, and organization. There are also hundreds of real examples to show how it’s done, with handy ‘before’ and ‘after’ versions. All this is presented in a straightforward and engaging way.

This new edition has been fully revised, reorganized, and updated to make its content even more accessible. There are new chapters discussing customer-service writing and common blunders in the workplace, while other sections have been amended to update examples and provide easier routes through the book. The chapter on sexism, in particular, has been heavily expanded to advise on the use of inclusive language in general. A new appendix has also been added, summarising the history of plain English from Chaucer to the present day.

Table of contents :
Cover
OXFORD GUIDE TO Plain English: FIFTH EDITION
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Starting points
What’s the problem?
Guidelines not rules
What’s meant by plain English?
Does plain English work?
UK consumer contracts—plain English required by law
How you may want to use this book
The thirty guidelines
Summary of the twelve main guidelines
1—Plan before you write.
2—Organize your material so readers can see the important information early and navigate the document easily.
3—Make the average sentence length 15–20 words.
4—Use words your readers are likely to understand.
5—Use only as many words as you need for meaning and tone of voice.
6—Prefer active-voice verbs unless there’s a good reason for using the passive.
7—Use good verbs to express the actions in your sentences.
8—Use vertical lists to break up complicated text.
9—Put your points positively when you can.
10—Put accurate punctuation at the heart of your writing.
11—Use good grammar, but relax—you don’t need to know hundreds of grammatical terms.
12—Check your material before the readers do.
1: Planning comes first
Getting started with a plan
Creating a core statement and horizontal document plan
Alternative approaches to planning
Strategic planning: learning from readers
Pre-production stage
Production stage
Post-production stage
Finally
2: Organizing your material in a reader-centred structure
Model 1: Top-heavy triangle (‘news triangle’)
Model 2: Problem-cause-solution
Model 3: Chronological order
Model 4: Questions and answers
Model 5: S-C-R-A-P (Situation, Complication, Resolution, Action, Politeness)
Model 6: S-O-A-P (Situation, Objective, Appraisal, Proposal)
Model 7: PARbox emails
Model 8: The 5 P’s (Position, Problem, Possibilities, Proposal, Packaging)
Model 9: Correspondent’s order
Model 10: Full-dress report
Title
Contents list
Summary
Introduction
Discussion
Conclusions
Recommendations
Appendices
Finally
3: Writing short sentences and clear paragraphs
Split and disconnect
Split and connect
Say less
Use a list
Cut verbiage
Start afresh
Developing paragraphs from topic sentences
Other common paragraph patterns
4: Preferring plain words
Is there no place for unusual words?
Use simpler alternatives
Reorganize the sentence
Examples of good plain words that show empathy
Adjusting the style to the audience
Conquering fear
Plain English word list
Frequency count
5: Writing concisely
Striking out useless words (padding)
Pruning the dead wood, grafting on the vigorous
Shortening wordy prepositional (‘prep’) phrases
Rewriting completely
Test your word-saving skills
6: Favouring active-voice verbs
Recognizing active-voice verbs (‘active verbs’, for short)
Recognizing passive-voice verbs (‘passive verbs’, for short)
Parts of the verb ‘to be’
Past participle
Converting passives to actives
Why the active should be your first choice
Using ‘I’ or ‘we’ in formal reports
Warning: passives can be useful
Checking your passive percentage
7: Using vigorous verbs
Nominalization linked to parts of ‘to be’ or ‘to have’
Nominalization linked to active verbs or infinitives
Nominalizations linked to passive verbs
When the going gets tougher
8: Using vertical lists
Keeping the listed items in parallel
Punctuating the listed items
Numbering the listed items
Seeing the possibility for vertical lists
9: Converting negative to positive
Some uses for negatives
10: Using good punctuation
Full stop (.)
Comma (,)
Colon (:)
Semicolon (;)
Dash (–)
Square brackets [ ] Brackets ( )
Capitals
Hyphen (-)
Apostrophe (’)
Possession
Ellipsis (…)
Quotation marks (‘‘ ”) or (‘ ’)
Exclamation mark (!)
Question mark (?)
11: Using good grammar
Examples of bad grammar: a quiz
12: Keeping errors in Czech: its time to Proof read
What is proofreading?
Proofreading on screen
Proofreading on paper
Common sources of error
Checking against copy
For the professionals
When in doubt
13: Dealing with some troublesome words and phrases
Troublesome words and phrases
Words often confused
14: Using or avoidingforeign words
15: Undoing knotty noun strings
16: Reducing cross-references
17: Exploring and exploding some writing myths
Myth 1: Never start a sentence with ‘But’ (or similar conjunctions)
Myth 2: Never put a comma before ‘and’
Myth 3: Never end a sentence with a preposition
Myth 4: Never split your infinitives
Myth 5: Never write a one-sentence paragraph
Myth 6: Write as you speak
18: Avoiding clichés
19: Pitching your writing at the right level
Average reading age
Examples of text written at the average level
Readability tests that can help you check the level of difficulty
Drawbacks and uses of readability tests
20: Writing sound starts and excellent endings
Trap 1: Writing an unfinished sentence
Trap 2: Repeating the heading
Trap 3: Archaic language
Finishing well
Conventions on opening and closing
21: Creating better emails
Planning and structure
Standards to follow
Formality in the text
Checking carefully
Abbreviations, emojis, and emoticons
22: Using inclusive language
Neutral language
Disability language
Language of ethnicity and skin colour
LGBT, etc. on business forms
Transgender language
23: Using alternatives to words alone
Other possibilities with text and tables
The focus group’s verdict
Decision trees
Strip cartoons
24: Caring enough about customers to write to them clearly
Even the regulators screw up
It’s that full-stop problem again
What good writers do
25: Overseeing colleagues’ writing
Working with the team
Making the right interventions
Final thoughts
26: Writing better instructions
Principle 1: Remember the readers
Principle 2: Favour a basic style of language
Principle 3: Split the information into chunks
Principle 5: Use clear illustrations with good labels and captions
Principle 6: Test with typical users
27: Clarifying for the Web
Get help and plan
Create scannable text
Build attractive and accessible pages
Organizing material well
Page design: key points
Help people find your site: the essentials
Check your site thoroughly for errors, nonsense, and officialese
Cut waffle to make the text more scannable
28: Making legal language lucid
Changes under way
What else can be done about legalese?
Replace or remove legal flavouring
Chop up those snakes
Put people into the writing
Add some relevant headings
Plainer writing, clearer judgments
Invasion of the Fog People
29: Writing low-literacy plain English
Who needs this kind of writing?
Testing is the key
Preparing low-literacy materials
Using difficult terms
Language that’s dumbed down or cleared up?
Numbers: figures or words?
Accuracy: gains and losses
Proofread carefully
Type size and style
Adding a contents page and summary to longer documents
Examples: transforming text into low-literacy English
Pictures and gestures
Effects of plain English
Getting professional help
Web writing
30: Clarifying page layout: somebasics
What’s the best way to get a feel for good layout?
In paper documents, what’s a good page size to use?
What are the key variables to control for high legibility?
So which is the best typeface to use for high legibility?
How should type be used to emphasize words?
Any hints on the use of white space?
Is it a good idea to reverse out the type?
Should type be printed on a coloured background?
Is it a good idea to track or scale the type?
What does ‘hierarchy of headings’ mean?
Should I use justified type?
Does colour help?
What paper should I use?
Doesn’t decent layout cost more?
Appendix 1: Commonest words
Appendix 2: A Short History of Plain-English Moments
Recent times: the US
Recent times: the UK
Recent times: other countries
Promoting plain language internationally
Sources and notes
General Sources
Legal Language
Specific Sources and Notes
Starting points
chapter 1
chapter 2
chapter 3
chapter 4
chapter 5
chapter 6
chapter 13
chapter 14
chapter 17
chapter 18
chapter 19
chapter 21
chapter 22
chapter 25
chapter 26
chapter 27
chapter 28
chapter 30
Appendix 2
Index