26 JULY 2017

Immigration New Zealand encourages plain English in new award

Immigration New Zealand will be sponsoring this year’s Best Plain English Turnaround Award as part of the WriteMark Plain English Awards. The Awards celebrate New Zealand’s clearest communicators and encourage the use of plain English as a common practice in our country.

Immigration New Zealand (INZ) facilitates the movement of the migrants New Zealand needs to prosper and provides these newcomers with information and services to help them settle successfully and contribute. INZ understands the importance of using plain English.

“With more than a quarter of New Zealand’s population born abroad, not everyone understands English well,” says Judi Altinkaya, National Manager, Migrant Settlement. “It’s important for people whose jobs involve communications to keep this in mind.

“For migrants new to New Zealand the quality of information they receive as they settle into their new lives here can make all the difference. The more New Zealand organisations - including ourselves - deliver that information effectively in plain English, the more we can create a smoother settlement process for newcomers,” says Ms Altinkaya.

The Best Plain English Turnaround Award recognises the best rewrite of a document or website that was originally difficult to understand but has been significantly improved by adopting a plain English approach, and using guidelines such as those outlined in INZ’s guide ’Keeping it Clear.’

In August 2016, INZ launched Keeping it Clear – an online resource designed to help organisations more clearly present their information so that it is easily understood by the growing proportion of new migrants in New Zealand. INZ recognises there is still more work to do in this space including improving how it communicates with all their customers.

The Best Plain English Turnaround Award is open to all forms of communication, whether online or in print.

To enter the 2017 Best Plain English Turnaround Award, visit the Plain English Awards website. Entries close on 31 August. Winners will be announced at the Awards ceremony on 23 November at the Royal Society of New Zealand’s premises in Wellington.

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