On Saturday, I visited the Educa fair, where a book called “Towards eSchool” was launched. It includes my article “What kind of digital education do teachers need?”

Among the twenty authors is Teuvo Sankila, publishing director for Otava Publishing. He spoke at the launch event about the role of digitalisation in the production of professional textbooks. According to him, several factors require the current style of publication: reliability, management of the big picture, and age-appropriate presentation.

Sankila argues that only older students benefit from open, online material. They have critical reading skills and they can perceive the outline from fragmented web information. Open web materials are also useful for differentiating and updating teaching.

The actual surprise was the research data he provided: 90% of learning materials in British schools are produced locally. There is no unified textbook culture like in Finland. The quality of the material thus varies greatly from school to school.

In Sankila’s view, Finnish practice brings equality to students. Everyone gets high-quality paper or electronic books in line with the new curriculum at the same time. However, it may be worth recalling that there are also alternative ways, and that Sankila represents the publisher’s view.

On Friday, I attended a panel at the University of Tampere. The panel was part of launching a program about science communication studies.

Research manager Sanna Kivimäki opened the event by comparing science communication with translatorial action. Science communication is intralingual translation, where the communicator’s task is to connect the world of the researcher to the world of the reader.

Professor Johanna Vaattovaara emphasized that science communication is not about popularizing text but about explaining phenomena. New research needs to be communicated in layman’s language because comprehension is needed in political decision-making. Information entombed in formal research reports rarely reaches experts in other scientific fields, let alone decision-makers and ordinary citizens.

In the panel, which included Satu Lipponen, Heidi Jaun, and Natasha Vilokkinen, we discussed our triumphs and our setbacks in the work of popularization. Our common view was that popularization requires several rounds of processing. The final work benefits from collegial feedback and from discussions of texts and meanings. One discussion arena is Twitter, which forces you to use plain and concise language regardless of subject.

In recent days, columns in the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper have dealt with the use of social media by researchers. Professor Pekka Isotalus added his support, saying that social media today is an essential part of the scientific researcher’s job.

Reading challenges are cropping up again and again. The news is warning that young people are reading fewer physical books and newspapers. Common opinion seems to be that the internet is corrupting reading skills.

What if the commentators are the ones misreading? Maybe we don’t have to worry about young people, but rather about the one-dimensional reading skills of older people. This interpretation is supported by a recent US study showing that people over 65 are the group most likely to spread fake news. Age was a bigger factor here than things like political affiliation. People who are used to traditional media tend to believe false news as long as the form and appearance look right.

For the time being, we can stop patronizing young people and focus instead on expanding our own information horizon. What about a digital reading challenge that encourages older people to explore Wikipedia and to assess its articles not by the platform but by their content? Participating in Twitter discussions is a healthy alternative for seniors who tend to hang out only on Facebook. Thanks to the magical world of the internet, you can also read quality newspapers from around the world and find out that truth does not appear in your local, printed newspaper.

Young people, of course, have known this for some time.

Verbs. Action words. No sentences without them. This is how Wikipedia sums up verbs, the most common parts of speech – using verbs, of course.

It seems that the Apple Watch has many features – just not verbs:

The largest Apple Watch display yet. New electrical heart sensor. Re-engineered Digital Crown with haptic feedback. Low and high heart rate notifications. Fall detection and Emergency SOS. New Breathe watch faces. Automatic workout detection. New yoga and hiking workouts. Advanced features for runners like cadence and pace alerts.

But what’s the value of the “Emergency SOS” function, the “New Breath watch face” (whatever that is), or even the watch’s ability to share data with friends, if there are no verbs to perform the activity?

These actionless phrases are from Apple’s own site. Apple is, of course, in that happy situation where the products it launches are almost ripped from stores. Trendy consumers always want to own the latest technology, regardless of the marketing materials. But does this indifference to verbs suit a sports watch?  Does it create the desired image to consumers?

This week’s guest writer, Sanna Stenberg, is a Finnish language student who participated in the Language Consulting Course at the University of Tampere.

Plain language is important when studying a foreign language. At the lowest skill level, a student can understand and write only short sentences and thus needs easy-to-read language.

Last weekend, I attended a Functional Language Learning Course at the University of Turku. We learned to teach language by combining actions, pictures, and plain language. Students were encouraged to use iPads and produce videos and photos with short phrases related to Finnish grammar.

Here’s a sample task: give students a floor plan or a map of an area. Have them navigate a route, look for objects, and take images according to specific instructions . “Take a picture of a blue pen beneath the table.” This teaches vocabulary and parts of speech in a larger context. The final product could be a series of images with simple phrases or a movie clip made with iMovie. The teacher helps to make the result understandable.

The course reminded me what it was like to study Spanish. The short sentences did not feel insuperable, but trying to combine main clauses with subordinate ones really made me sweat. Most people probably feel like this when they start to learn Finnish. The functional language approach encourages you to use the language in real life.

This week’s guest writer, Merja Sovala, is a student of Finnish language and literature. She participated in the Language Consulting Course at the University of Tampere.

Company names evoke feelings. Those who choose the names may not care whether the chosen spelling violates the rules of Finnish. The National Board of Patents and Registration of Finland recommends that names conform with grammar and spelling rules. However, the name of a company is much more than just a string of characters that distinguishes one company from another. At its best, the name immediately sticks in the consumer’s mind, creating positive images and conveying information about the business.

A name also has legal, business and communicative significance for the company. According to the Board of Patents and Registration: “The more inventive the business name is, the stronger protection it gets. The inventive company name stands out from other registered company names and sticks better in the consumer’s mind.” Further, a company name is an expression of corporate culture and a tool for enhancing the brand’s reputation. In this way, breaking norms may be not a mistake but a way to command attention.

Business names are also multimodal entities; they’re more than their letters and their pronunciation. If we consider them only as text, we miss essential factors. For example, the company name is closely associated with the logo, which is an established graphic representation of the name. The selected styles, such as the typeface and colors, tell you about business practices and values. As for the literal text, Finns often perceive the letters “ä” and “ö” to be unpleasant or even ugly. I asked Japanese speakers about these letters; they think the same graphemes are visually cute and generate positive images.

In company names, you can also use any language, a mix of languages, or even made-up language, and the names can still work in terms of Finnish grammar, at least to some extent. What matters is how well they suit their operating environment. Examples of such names include Papu Design and Cimec. These names do not mean anything, but that doesn’t matter! Whatever its name, in the end a company creates its content and meaning. The name and its form may also have a story; that’s a new chapter and possibly a blog post of its own.

This week’s guest writer, Maritta Kela, is a Finnish language student who participated in the Language Consulting Course at the University of Tampere. For her master’s thesis, she is examining the Finnish names of Japanese companies.

Everyone has had the experience of coming across a piece of writing that doesn’t make sense to them, even though there’s nothing wrong with the words on the page. The selection might deal with a foreign environment or with a field unfamiliar to the reader. The writer fails to provide background; he assumes that we know enough about the topic. As a result, we can’t connect the text to anything, and it fails to expand our knowledge.

Editors and translators often have to help the reader in an unfamiliar information environment by smuggling more information into the text or by making the environment more familiar to us in some other way. The meaning of the text takes shape – or fails to – depending on whether the reader can relate its contents to things already known.

A theoretician of translation studies, Ernst-August Gutt, uses the concept of contextual gap. He’s referring to differences in the information environment of readers with different languages. Often, a translator has to reorganize the relationship of implicit and explicit information in the text.

It’s necessary to build a bridge over a contextual gap, especially when adapting jargon into plain language. As with actual bridges, it’s good to start with a solid foundation. When it comes to writing, that means starting with points that the readers and the writers share.

I’m inspired by the idea of a jargon workshop. I heard this term for the first time while watching recordings from the “I understand” seminar held last spring. Of particular interest was the presentation by Mirva Kipinoinen, who spoke about a revision of the Tukes website.

The jargon workshop was one approach taken to redo the site’s language. During the workshop, experts collected difficult expressions and developed alternatives for them. They went so far as to blacklist certain terms and suggest other expressions for authors to use.

I really like the workshop method because it is so concrete and and because it requires looking at the texts in detail. General rules by themselves do not improve readability. Discussions in workshops like this encourage experts to read and evaluate their own written work in a new way.

In the Tukes plain language project I found another sound principle: don’t simply reuse legal language on the website. What Tukes does is to give guidance in plain language and provide links to the related regulations and laws.

The seminar for Plain Language Day was held on October 11th, as the day itself fell on the following Saturday. The Plain Language Award was presented during the seminar.

Keynote speakers Sissel Motzfeldt and Ragnhild Samuelsberg came from Norway. Their clarification project in the public sector was based on a study showing that 1.3 million Norwegians consider administrative documents too difficult. Another study showed that 90 percent of civil servants think that they write in understandable language. Motzfeldt and Samuelsberg state that administrative documents are based on legal language; thus, efforts to clarify must start with those laws and regulations. They tried new methods like conducting plain language workshops for lawyers. They also engaged in user testing, where laymen provided feedback on the understandability of legal documents. According to the keynote speakers, the commitment of lawyers and politicians was particularly important. They are key actors in promoting plain language.

And the winner of the Plain Language Award? Kela Tips from the Social Insurance Institution of Finland. This resource provides information on social security benefits, shared in plain language through social media.

The 13th of October was International Plain Language Day.

Although plain language and easy-to-read language have many common features, they are different things. Plain language is clear English for everyone, whereas easy-to-read language is for groups with special reading and writing difficulties. Such groups may be elderly people, immigrants, or people with various physical conditions.

In everyday speech, plain language and easy-to-read language are often used as synonyms. The translation of these terms also causes problems. In Finnish, plain language is selkeä kieli and easy-to-read is selkokieli, in Swedish the terms are klarspråk and lättläst språk.

Both formats, plain and easy-to-read, advise you to write in a concrete way (Matti fixes the dishwasher) and avoid abstract expressions (Kitchen equipment is repaired by maintenance personnel). Common short words and light sentences are hallmarks of easy language.

It has been estimated that about 10 percent of readers need easy-to-read language; 100 percent benefit from plain language.