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.