Resources
What is Plain Talk?
-
Health Care Authority's Power of Plain Talk: An Introduction
-
Communicating Clearly with Charts & Graphs by Jeffrey Showman, Office of Financial Management
Articles
-
Baker, Luke. (2009). Group fed up with baffling government jargon. Reuters.
-
Barr, S. (2007). A push for plain English. Washington Post.
-
Braley, Bruce. (2009). Braley Re-Introduces Plain Language Act to Cut Government Gobbledygook. News Release.
-
Britt, R. (2005). Study: Simple Writing Makes You Look Smart. Livescience.com.
-
Buffet, W. (1998). Preface to Plain English Handbook. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
-
Cheek, A. (2008). Unclear communication is costly, time-consuming. Federal Times.
-
Crawford, A. (2008). State targets bureaucratese to improve communication. The Arizona Republic.
-
Dedrick, C. (2009). A Brief Primer on Plain Talk. Washington State Department of Revenue.
-
Dedrick, C. (2009). How to Identify a Good Plain Talk Project. Washington State Department of Revenue.
-
Dedrick, C. (2009). Measuring Your Efforts Provides Valuable Information. Washington State Department of Revenue.
-
Dedrick, C. (2009). Plain Talk is a Three-Legged Stool. Washington State Department of Revenue.
-
Dedrick, C. (2009). Sincere Desire to Inform is Key to Plain Talk Success. Washington State Department of Revenue.
-
Dedrick, C. (2009). Testing Your Document Shows if You’ve Hit Your Mark. Washington State Department of Revenue.
-
Federal Aviation Administration. Using Plain Language.
-
Howard Botka, D. (2002). From gobbledygook to plain English: How a large state agency took on
the bureaucratic form letter. Society for Technical Communication. -
James, N. (2005). No, Minister: intention and reality in government rhetoric. Plain English Foundation.
-
Kimble, J. (1994). Notes Toward Better Legal Writing. State Bar of Michigan.
-
Kimble, J. (2006). Testifying to Plain Language. Michigan Bar Journal.
-
Siegel+Gale. (2009). Simplicity Survey: A Clarion Call for Transparency. Siegel+Gale.
-
Paradis, T. (2007). Plain talk proposed. Spokesman Review.
-
Plain language around the world: A U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Consumer Affairs summary. The Federation Press.
-
Redish, G. (2005). Review of the gap between instructions for voting and best practice in providing instructions. National Institute of Standards and Technology.
-
Selvin, M. (2008). No gobbledygook; company handbook in plain English. Los Angeles Times.
-
Spears, T. (2007). Scientists told to cut the gobbledygook. CanWest News Service.
-
State Bar of Michigan. Plain English Committee
-
Strunk, W. Elements of Style, Strunk and White
General Writing
-
OWL Online Writing Lab - Purdue University
-
Writer's Handbook - University of Wisconsin-Madison
-
Communicating With and About People with Disabilities – U.S. Department of Labor
-
Gregg's Reference Manual- guidelines for grammar and punctuation for web, correspondence, and writing
-
Letting Go of the Words, Ginny Redish Ph.D. - guidelines for web layout
Government Writing
-
Plain Language.gov – Federal government writing resources
Grant Writing
Technical Writing
-
Technical Writing: A short course on writing technical reports
-
Legal Writing for Plain English by Bryan A. Garner
Writing For The Web
Accessibility
-
Acrobat accessibility training resources for versions 8 and 9
-
Multimedia tutorials from Adobe about PDF & Flash accessibility (Note: see the dropdown menu for all choices including captioning with Adobe Captivate and adding descriptions)