Tag Archives: easy-to-understand

Resources to learn plain language writing

A colleague of mine in another country wants to improve her report writing and writing for the web. She works in a government water & sanitation project. English is not her first language. She has a number of audiences she must write for, via various reports, briefing papers, project reports and the web: donors (mostly foreign governments), other government offices in her own country, the media in her own country and residents of her country, especially those her office is trying to help.

I think resources on plain language are the best guidance for writers anywhere. I use my journalism training and experience, which was steeped in plain language, to write reports, and at UN offices, I got a tremendous amount of great feedback from colleagues about my reports, along the lines of “Wow, I could understand this!”

Here are the free online resources I’m recommending to my colleague. Note that some of these resources link to even more resources:

  • Communicate Health, a health education and communication firm specializing in improving health literacy through user-centered design, research, and content development. Resources promote usability and accessibility of public health materials.

What would YOU recommend for my colleague? Say what you would recommend in the comments.

Also see:

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