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TR 46. Plain Language for Expert or Lay Audiences: Designing Text Using Protocol-Aided Revision
By: Karen A. Schriver
Publication: National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report
Date: 1991
Summary: This paper argues for a redefinition of plain English and suggests a method for assessing whether or not a text is indeed clear to its intended readership.
Excerpt
During the late 1970s, advocates of plain language were trying to inform the public that confusing and hard-to-understand public documents did not have to be the norm, that there were alternatives to medicalese, legalese, and bureaucratese. Consequently, most effort in the late 1970s in Britain and in the United States was devoted toward raising the consciousness of consumers that they indeed have a right to demand plain language. Early advocates provoked controversy by arguing that unclear and purposefully vague and jargon-laden language was being used as a tool to keep the less knowledgeable, less powerful, less wealthy, from knowing what they were signing.
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