Research into Practice

The Problem with Plain Language

Plain language initiatives have boosted the ease of reading many government documents, investor information, and the corporate financial disclosures necessitated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. However, plain language alone, while helpful in eliminating the jargon common to many corporate documents, fails to produce the sort of clear, efficient, and highly readable writing most organizations need. This article by J. Yellowlees Douglas provides (1) an overview of the research behind plain language guidelines, (2) the reasons for its insufficiency, and (3) a survey of the more pertinent research in neuroscience on how the brain processes written English, resulting in (4) guidelines that can enable any writer to write clearly, concisely, and highly effective, regardless of the document or context.

Research Article