If I hadn’t read Anne Norema’s master’s thesis (in Finnish), I would not have thought that toilet graffiti appears on walls in Pompeii and even ancient Egypt. Norema’s focus is more contemporary; she writes about linguistic features of restroom graffiti found at the University of Helsinki. The topic piques my interest because a wall and an online chat have common features. The anonymity provides a way to slip past the expectations of cooperation found in everyday discussion and so to violate social norms. Both kinds of writing are speech-like and include words like “oh, well, what about” and fragmentary phrases. It was surprising that more than half of the initial restroom graffiti opened a debate, which could continue for up to 18 exchanges. If an initial entry was framed as a question, discussion was more likely to break out, with a greater variety of comments than an everyday conversation. The tone is often outspoken, and community is either not sought at all or it is created by mocking some third party. The most popular topics include relationships, sex and religion; one stall in the Helsinki University was even named the Jesus John because of its religious writings.

The thesis reminded me of an old joke—one I found years ago in the Tampere University restroom.

— Is there intelligent life on Earth?
— Yes, but I’m just visiting.

I remember the story better than most lectures.

I’ve been reading plain language guides and research. In my own work I train officials and experts to write clear language for the average citizens, while the term plain language refers to adapting writing to specific groups such as foreigners, the elderly and people with disabilities. However, the guidelines for writing readable text in general, or plain language specifically, turned out to be surprisingly similar. Authors should avoid long, strange and abstract words as well as difficult sentence structure. Sentence length doesn’t have much impact on readability for general audiences, even though studies show that plain-language writing tends to have shorter sentences and tends to avoid subordinate clauses. Guidelines for plain language, as well as guidelines for writing in general, often focus on the micro-structure of the text. As Leena Laurinen has shown, at times this approach may break the macro-structure – for example, by reducing the cohesion of the piece as a whole. In terms of comprehension, it is important to pay attention to the entire design of the text rather than only the details.

I read a recently published review, Pedagogical Cultures in Transition (in Finnish), by Kari A. Hintikka, who holds that in education, social media is used as enabler, facilitator, or reformer. It can either just replace old tools or it can reform pedagogy. The key contribution of social media in education seems to be that it facilitates participation and co-operation. As an example, the review used a joint assignment divided into smaller pieces —microtasks. An individual can freely choose his role and the ways he participates in the project: he can generate ideas, gather information, write, comment, proofread, or simple vote for the solutions adopted. This sort of freeform collaboration combines knowledge in a new way, and the threshold for participation is low. Even a small contribution, however, will increase interest and commitment to the task. And thanks to social media, you can take part at any time, from anywhere, without needing any special IT skills.

Once again we’re looking for the worst jargon of the year, so send us your favorite examples of impenetrable government writing. This competition welcomes the documents you love to hate: we’re looking for public-sector writing that’s unclear or incomprehensible to the average citizen. From the nominations we receive, we’ll select three finalists, and on June 11 the audience at the Finnish Consulting Group’s Forum will select the winner. You can submit your nomination anonymously, and we won’t reveal the name of the piece’s author–the purpose of the contest is to draw attention to governmental writing in general. In recent years, winners have included agendas and reports, but baffling instructions have also been popular. Send the best of the worst to info@yksityinenkielitoimisto.net or share it with the Language Police on Twitter and Facebook by Friday, June 6. Those who submit nominations will receive a chance to win one of our books.

I have often talked about the usability of government texts, and I’ve thought about how effective the idea of usability is for evaluating such writing. I became familiar with the book User-Centered Translation (in Finnish) through one of its authors, and learned that the issue is being explored in the field of translation studies. While the authors suspect that this concept is not widely applied, they believe the idea of user-centeredness—taking the reader into account—has a fundamental place in translation as in all forms of communications. What benefits do we gain if we replace reader with user? I think a user perspective more clearly emphasizes the relationship between the reader, the type of text and the reader’s context: the written word is a tool intended to achieve a specific purpose, and the time spent by the reader is weighed against the value he derives. The most obvious application for usability is for technical writing, but it can also be applied to government regulations and forms. On a broader level, usability refers to user interaction with any situation facilitated by text. The more such writing is user-centered, the more quickly and accurately—and even more enjoyably—the reader can take it in as well as apply his new understanding.

On April 8th, Localfinland.fi announced this year’s social media survey results. Of Finland’s 320 municipalities, 170 provided data about their use of social media. Larger towns and cities use social media more than small ones do, and responded to the survey in greater numbers. Facebook is the most commonly used service, but municipalities with more than 50 000 inhabitants also communicate through Twitter and YouTube. As previous studies have shown, youth services and library are the most active users, but city hall is also near the top. Social media is used mainly for information and marketing; less attention goes to customer service. 59% of the municipalities do not have a social media strategy or plan, which partly explains why this new channel is so often used for traditional one-way communication. Interactive communication requires a broader mindset for the public sector, and in fact new uses are emerging as agencies figure out ways to apply these new tools.

The University of Helsinki did a study on massive open online courses last year. The aim was to find out what kind of strategy the university should take with MOOCs. The study examined different types of mass courses and consortiums of universities which offer them, such as Coursera, Udacit, edX and FutureLearn. Pirjo Hiidenmaa, who conducted the study, does not go along with the hype about MOOCs. Instead, she weighs the pros and cons coolly, as the title demonstrates: “If the answer is MOOC, what is the question?” Hiidenmaa states that “digitalisation, open access and free sharing form a misguided equation, which is difficult to solve in practice.” Among the advantages of a MOOC are the opportunity to promote a university and the ability to attract more students, but the disadvantages are cost and the high proportion of drop-outs. All in all, the study considered MOOCs as simply one way—and not necessarily the best—to increase openness and improve learning at the university

Last Wednesday, at the Technopolis Business Breakfast, guest speakerAarne Töllinen talked about the use of social media at the Tjäreborg travel agency. The agency offers customer service via social media 76 hours a week—and the client can choose the vehicle: Twitter, Facebook or online chat. The customer service staff appear online with their own names and faces. The tone is light but businesslike, and suited to the medium: smileys are used in Facebook messages but not in e-mail. Töllinen’s key message was that social media should not be a communications afterthought, because that simply increases risks to the organization’s reputation. If you decide to provide customer service through social media, you must set measurable objectives, commit resources, and above all, you need to constantly monitor and manage the service. Tjäreborg is connecting with clients through chat, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube. Quite an effective use of social media in my opinion.

The Finnish Treasury has launched Public Service Info, a new service to help people manage their dealings with government agencies. Six days a week, Public Service’s advisors will help customers with e-services and guide them to the correct office. So far, most issues have dealt with the Social Insurance Institution and with tax administration. For non-urgent problems citizens should avoid calling the emergency number 112 and instead dial 0295 000; one goal of the new service is to reduce the load at emergency response centers. Those centers currently receive 350,000 non-urgent information requests per year, and half of those are related to administrative regulations and processes. You can contact Public Service Info about any administrative matter—not only by phone, but also by e-mail and through online forms. So a citizen who wants to ask a question or make a request doesn’t have to start by studying organization charts and mission statements.

Last week, Kielikello magazine reported on a language survey targeted at Finnish municipalities. According to the respondents, the most significant factors complicating the work of government writers are the lack of time (78% of respondents), standard practices (69%) and lack of skill ( 54%). 58% of respondents believe that the quality of documents will improve if they are targeted to citizens, but only 12% of the respondents rely on user feedback. I suspect that the results mainly reflect the prevailing modus operandi: feedback is not currently used as part of the usability evaluation of texts. User feedback, however, is a great development tool, one that Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland,is applying as it works to improve its forms.

Another article in the same magazine upheld The Action Plan for Plain Language. “For those who are eager to reform official language through social media and on the Internet, the action plan may be a disappointment.”Kielikello contends that while social media can be used, “we also need expert knowledge.” Unfortunately, this view reflects a superficial understanding of online communication. The whole idea is that an expert can create understandable, everyday language on difficult issues through interaction with citizens. Blogs and discussion forums are good tools for that.

Standard practice is sometimes a barrier blocking a better route.