Municipalities can take advantage of a free online guide<\/a> to plain language (in Finnish). This tool highlights language issues that are important for everyone, not only for special groups. One key point is that individual writers in the public sector can’t bring jargon under control by themselves. What matters most is the approach and the methods used throughout the organization. That means changing its use of language in general. Writers within the organization can help bring about that change\u2014for example, by organizing material in a reader-friendly format. Another task for the writers is to sharply focus on the central point of a document: what’s the one main idea that the reader needs to retain? Readers will understand more readily if the writer uses short, familiar words; well-written context helps clarify unfamiliar terms. The plain-language guide recommends repetition, an idea I usually disagree with. Relying on repetition creates unnecessary noise and can even obscure the point of the document. A couple of good examples of plain texts are Satakunta\u2019s instructions<\/a> for radiotherapy patients and Kuopio\u2019s library guide<\/a> (both in Finnish). All municipalities should start writing their instructions in plain language; it’s an obvious way to benefit every citizen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Municipalities can take advantage of a free online guide to plain language (in Finnish). This tool highlights language issues that are important for everyone, not only for special groups. One key point is that individual writers in the public sector can’t bring jargon under control by themselves. What matters most is the approach and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-english-en","7":"category-wordoftheweek-en","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1558,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions\/1558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}