Many of us spend time writing reports, emails or letters as part of our day to day work.
Sometimes we use language that is clear to us but less clear to others who do not work with us.
Using Plain English will help you make written communication as useful and effective as possible by:
- Making it easier for people to read and understand what you’ve written
- Getting your points across clearly
Here is a guide to Plain English to help you get your point across.
Do you have examples of jargon?
If you come across examples of written communication you think would be clearer if written in Plain English, please let the Communications Team know at workingtogether@argyll-bute.gov.uk
Quick tip
Once you have written your letter, email or report, you can check how easy it is for people to read by using readability statistics:
- Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook offer this feature which shows you how simple or complex your writing is based on readability statistics.
A document’s readability is measured using the Flesch Reading Ease score. Sentence length and the number of syllables per word are used to calculate reading ease. Text with short sentences and words with no more than two syllables will get a high Flesch reading ease score.
More information is available on the Microsoft Office website .
In brief:
- Go to “File”
- Options
- Proofing
- Tick “Show readability stats”
- Then do a spell check and this will give you a “Flesch reading ease” score:
The higher the score, the easier the document is to understand. Aim for at least 70%