Theres an award for comprehensible writing in government. Its like the Oscars for bureaucratic paperwork. Tim Murphy reports: Its like the Oscars, but for paperwork. The Clearmark Awards, sponsored by the DC-based Center for Plain Language, are handed out annually to the government agencies, corporations, and nonprofits that produce the most coherent literature. On Tuesday, for the 11th-consecutive year, the nominees gathered at the National Press Club in downtown Washington to nibble on chocolate mousse and celebrate their colleagues for making bureaucratic copy comprehensible. Up for awards were the Social Security Administration, for its redesigned website; the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, for its revision of its rules of procedure; and the National Diabetes Education Program, for its pamphlet on taking care of your feet. In a year in which a broken website became a symbol of bureaucratic ineptitude, these were the heroes the media never told you about. CPLs mission is a simple one: Help public- and private-sector institutions produce text that humans can understand. The organization lobbies Congress, hosts seminars, and issues an annual report card rating government agencies on the clarity of their output. Plain language isnt a new concept, explained CPL board member Jana Goldman, a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration public affairs officer. There was a Swedish king about 400 years ago who wanted everything in plain Swedish. -Erika
Posted on: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 21:46:15 +0000
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