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You are here: Home / In English / The word of the week is Plain Language Day Workshop.

The word of the week is Plain Language Day Workshop.

16.10.2017

On Plain Language Day, October 13th, the Institute for the Languages of Finland organized a workshop with the theme of health, social services, and regional government reform. Spokesmen from two ministries described the hundred-word health and social services vocabulary, and also reminded participants about the use of plain language. Emmi Hyvönen, Communications Manager of Jyväskylä, politely responded that the material from the ministries was useful, but needed to be popularized. She emphasized a key point beyond the usual rubrics: organizations must test their texts on users; otherwise, there is no guarantee of comprehensibility. Another essential point came from plain language expert Ari Sainio: the content must be arranged from the perspective of the reader, not that of the organization. Finally, groups set to work trying to simplify some health and social service documents, tossing aside peculiar terms like unincorporated county enterprises. All in all, the workshop’s motto could have been “Write like a human, not like a bureaucrat”.

Filed Under: In English, Word of the Week

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