This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2013 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Hall of Fame, Resources for Instructors, Writing Fundamentals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.
The ability to explain complex topics in clear terms is one of the most important skills a business communicator can have. This example from the Creative Commons website, explaining three levels of content licensing, demonstrates the power of plain language.
Bovee and Thill blog – Hall of Fame – Creative Commons website
January 25th, 2013 at 2:00 am
Yes, this is strong evidence of the power of plain language. But plain language is now routinely taught in law school writing courses, eliminating the need for a legal “code” license. Almost all legal concepts, like other technical concepts, can be expressed clearly and accurately in user-friendly plain language. See, for example, the work of Joseph Kimble at the University of Michigan Law School and Kenneth A. Adams extensive materials on clear contract drafting. Legal code is no longer the language that “most lawyers know and love.” I spent nearly a decade teaching Chevron Corporation lawyers plain language writing skills at Chevron’s Asia South headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand. Without exception, they favored 21st century business communication over “code.”