New Zealand a world plain English leader

New Zealand a world plain English leader

Judges in the 2010 WriteMark New Zealand Plain English Awards say New Zealand is a world leader in plain English. They say our best public sector documents are as good as anything being produced anywhere in the world.

The panel of 18 plain English experts, eight of whom are from overseas countries including Australia, the US and Britain, has just released this year’s shortlists. Hundreds of Awards entries have been whittled down to the best four or five in each of the 13 categories. Finalists and winners will be chosen from these shortlists.

Candi Harrison, Web Manager at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development until 2005 (now retired), helped judge the People’s Choice Best Website and Brainstrain Website categories. She said New Zealand leads the way internationally in recognising the good—and bad—of plain language with its Plain English Awards.

“The New Zealand Plain English Awards were used as a model for the inaugural Clearmark Plain Language Awards held this year in the US because of their excellence. So it was an honour to join fellow plain language advocates in New Zealand to applaud those who write well. It was also great to encourage others, through the Brainstrain awards, to write better.”

Fellow US judge and Chair of the Center for Plain Language Annetta Cheek also praised New Zealand’s “many good government websites”.

“While there are a lot of good government sites in the US, I suspect that if we evaluated what percentage of government sites are clear and helpful, New Zealand's offerings would carry the day.”

Judges for the Best Document category were led by the Executive Director of the Plain English Foundation in Sydney, Dr Neil James. He said this year’s leading entries were not only well-written they were also structured and designed in ways that made them easier to understand.

“The standard is clearly rising with a distinguishing feature of the best entries being their ability to establish a persona in the text. This means thinking carefully about your audience and writing to converse with them about a task of mutual interest in a manner they will relate to.”

Dr James said the standard of public sector entries was clearly a cut above that of private sector entries, where there were still too many documents that did not focus sufficiently on their users’ needs.

He also said the general high standard of New Zealand’s public sector documents did not mean they were perfect.

“If there is one general criticism of the public sector documents, it is that many of them are still far too long. At times, the level of detail reflected more what an agency wanted to cover without recognising that much of it was unlikely to be read or used.”

High profile public sector organisations on this year’s shortlist include Inland Revenue, Statistics New Zealand, and Child Youth and Family. Private sector organisations include House of Travel, the Pharmacy Guild and the BNZ.

Winners and finalists will be announced at a public ceremony on 3 September held at the Banquet Hall at Parliament and hosted by Hon Christopher Finlayson, Attorney-General and Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage.

The Plain English Awards are an annual not-for-profit event run by the WriteMark Plain English Awards Trust.

Further information:

The 2010 Plain English Awards shortlists:
www.plainenglishawards.org.nz/2010-plain-english-awards-shortlists

The 2010 Plain English Awards judges:
www.plainenglishawards.org.nz/judges-for-the-2010-plain-english-awards/

ENDS

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