The Plain Writing Act of 2010 (Act) is intended to make it easy for the public to understand government documents. The SEC, like other federal agencies, must write documents in plain writing, defined under the Act as writing that is "clear, concise, well-organized, and follows other best practices appropriate to the subject or field or audience." Starting in October 2011, the Act requires us to write new and substantially revised documents in plain language using the Federal Plain Language Guidelines.<br><br>As a disclosure agency, the SEC is committed to communicating with investors in easily understandable language. In 1998, the SEC published a guide, A Plain English Handbook: How to Create Clear SEC Disclosure Documents, showing securities lawyers and companies ways to reduce legalese. (Summary by the SEC) ( )
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Not at all! It's great that you could polish it off so quickly!
In section 3, I noticed two discrepancies that might change the meaning a little bit. I happened to be reading along, so these are not standard PL'ing comments and the edits are totally optional:
17:43 Text reads "Not...unless; only if. Not...except; only if." I heard "if only" instead of "only if" in both instances.
33:17 Missing "after" before the revised sentence.
Otherwise it's PL OK!
These same concepts are used in medical writing, as you can imagine. Some medical writers specialize in plain English for patients/consumers. (I've got a webinar on the subject bookmarked for when I have a free hour.) The tips in chapter 6 work for everyone, though, especially in scientific writing that's so technical to start with (the same as legal and financial documents).
Sections 4 and 5 are PL OK. Yay!! I take it you decided against reading the appendices?
I'll be out of town for a conference for the next couple of days. If you send a revised section 3 and don't mind waiting for me, I can spot check it Saturday night. (I won't mind if you'd rather check it yourself so you can pop this into the catalog!)
Thanks Laurie Anne. Yes, I decided to omit the apendixes because I wasn't sure how to read them, or that they would be helpful if read.
I'm going to try to do the corrections tonight because after that I'm away from my microphone until Sunday. No problem waiting for you to spot check - there's no rush on this.
I'm curious to see what the cover makers come up with for this!
I've wondered that too - ? plain brown paper (as in "sent in a plain wrapper" as THOSE ads used to say in my distant youth or a no entry type sign with no gobbledygook - but then I'd have to work out how to spell it or find an SEC logo or .........
I was able to pl one section while at the dentist's office with my son, so maybe I can spot ck, we'll see.
Maybe a semicolon with a big circle and slash through it. In a legible serif font with plenty of white space, of course, and no more than 34 words per line on the back side. (and left justified, ragged right)
Or default to a nice landscape if that doesn't work
(Bored in hotel room waiting for dinnertime)
The plain language folks might go for just the title in a nice font on a solid (white?) background ... it is pretty long, would prob fill the front if you used the whole thing. But there's no law your cover has to be plain just cause the language is.
