Matthew,

Those who were not aware of the effort may find some interest in the link. Thanks for that.

The "plain language guidance" for US Government folk is basically a rehash of parts of Strunk and White ("The Elements of Style"): use short sentences, use active voice, avoid circumlocutions like "the development of" for "developing", and use the terms business people use, rather than "government speak" or "lawyer speak". One of their examples is: "X reduces the economic impact of the implementation of Y" can be replaced by "X makes Y cost less." But there are similar examples in Strunk & White.

All this, however, is distant from the issue of presenting a complex concept set clearly. "Plain language" for the Government means using natural language in a way that the average citizen will understand, because they may have to abide by, or benefit from, whatever is being said. Our discussion was about the use of natural language to explain complex concepts, along with or instead of a formal language. I assume that one does not carefully specify a complex conceptualization in some domain to "average citizens", but rather to peers in that domain. The idea of presenting a tutorial for people who are not at that level is "quite another thing entirely". I am not going to be concerned about carefully specifying the technical characteristics of my gearing system if I have to start by explaining what a transmission is.

-Ed

-- 
Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Systems Integration Division, Engineering Laboratory
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800
"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, 
 and have not been reviewed by any Government authority."

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