Posts tagged "Writing"
Plain language is a modest muse, as her name suggests. No rock queen, she appears simple, unassuming, natural, unadorned by sequins or diamonds. She is neither sophisticated nor scholarly—yet she is widely followed.
Governments pursue and promote plain language. So do companies, not-for-profits and other organisations.
Their reasons are many and various. What's your own reason for admiring or disliking communication in plain language?
When you send an email to a number of people, should you put the addresses in the 'TO:', 'Cc', or 'Bcc' field?
It's all very simple, but recently I had to explain it to a technophobic friend—and I found that difficult. So in case you too need to explain it one day, here's what I told her.
Let's assume you have completed Stages 1 and 2 of editing a large report. That means you have sorted out the big problems, and have edited the report for purpose, structure and content. You have also edited at the level of headings (headlines), sub-headings and paragraphs.
Now to tackle Stage 3: copyediting for correctness, clarity, style and tone.