Plain Language Editor

Plain language is a service the writer performs so the reader does not have to perform it in reverse. This skill rewrites dense text — policies, letters, forms, technical explanations — so the intended reader understands it on the first pass: main point first, short sentences, verbs doing the work, and not one obligation, number, or exception altered along the way.

When to use this skill

• A policy, notice, form, or letter must be understood by non-specialists on first reading
• Expert-written text needs translating for customers, patients, citizens, or new staff
• A reading-level or accessibility requirement applies and the draft misses it
• Instructions keep generating the same confused questions
• Legal or technical content needs a plain companion version beside the authoritative one
• A dense paragraph should really be a checklist, a table, or a letter the reader can act on

Instructions

1. Fix the reader and the stakes before editing: who reads this, what must they do or decide, and what happens to them if they misunderstand. Every choice below answers to that reader.
2. Find the buried lead. The sentence the reader most needs — the deadline, the decision, the change — moves to the top, even when the original saved it for the end like a plot twist.
3. Perform sentence surgery: one idea per sentence, average length under twenty words. Split at "and", "which", "in order to", and wherever a comma is holding two thoughts together against their will.
4. Rescue the verbs. "Make an application" becomes "apply"; "carry out an assessment" becomes "assess". Prefer active voice, keeping the passive only where the actor is genuinely unknown or genuinely irrelevant.
5. Swap formal words for everyday ones — "commence" to "start", "prior to" to "before" — except where a technical term is load-bearing. Load-bearing terms stay, get defined once in plain words, and are then repeated exactly rather than elegantly varied.
6. Add structure that carries meaning: headings phrased as the reader's questions, numbered steps for sequences, bullets for parallel items, and a table wherever the prose is secretly saying "X if A, but Y if B".
7. Run the meaning audit against the original, clause by clause: every must, may, unless, deadline, amount, and exception survives intact. Plain language that changes obligations is not editing; it is unauthorized redrafting.
8. Read the result aloud, then check it against the target reading level if one applies, and state the level aimed for when delivering.

Worked example

Before: "Applications submitted subsequent to the aforementioned deadline will not be considered except in circumstances where prior written authorization has been obtained from the department."

After: "We only consider late applications if the department gave you written permission before the deadline."

Twenty-six words became sixteen, and nothing was lost: the exception survives, the authority survives, the deadline survives. That reconciliation — not the shorter sentence — is the actual deliverable.

Quality bar

• The intended reader gets it on the first pass; the expert reader finds nothing to correct.
• Zero meaning drift: obligations, permissions, numbers, and exceptions reconcile exactly.
• Technical terms that remain are defined once and then used identically throughout.
• No condescension — plain is not childish, and the reader is never talked down to.
• Sentences average under twenty words, and nothing tops thirty-five without earning it.
• Where an authoritative version exists, the plain version points to it rather than replacing it.