Writing Can Deceive You

You can be deceived by the use of punctuation and/or by the writer’s choice of a noun over a verb.

For example, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects you. Supposedly your clinic can’t tell your insurance company (or others) what your diagnosis is.

But look at how HIPAA is explained to you by a clinic:

“You have a right to inspect and copy your protected health information. Under federal law, however, you may not inspect or copy the following records, psychotherapy notes, information compiled in reasonable anticipation of, or use in, a civil, criminal, or administrative action or proceeding, and protected health information that is subject to law that prohibits access to protected health information.”

That last sentence hinders understanding. Look what happens when it gains a colon and a couple of semicolons:

“Under federal law, however, you may not inspect or copy the following records: psychotherapy notes; information compiled in reasonable anticipation of, or use in, a civil, criminal, or administrative action or proceeding; and protected health information that is subject to law that prohibits access to protected health information.”

Earlier, the same document also uses a noun-action “disclosure” instead of “we disclose X.” Look at how the noun-action shields the clinic:

“We may use or disclose your protected health information in the following situations without your authorization. These situations include … research … national security …. Under the law, we must make disclosures to you and when required by the Secretary of the Dept. of HHS to investigate or determine our compliance with the requirements of Section 164.500."

In the sentence above, “we must make disclosures to you” means what? “Disclosures” is a noun. It allows the writer to hide what the clinic must disclose to me. “Hello, we disclosed some information. Goodbye.”

If the clinic's policy statement had used verbs, the sentence could have read, “we must disclose to you that we told Agency X that …." Then English grammar would have implied that the clinic would disclose more information. “Hello, we told the National Security Administration that you ….”

This and That

The start of a sentence should remind the reader of a term from the previous sentence. That "reminder" word or phrase must be specific; vague reminders leave readers confused. One reminder word is "this" in the two-sentence example below:

(1) The family assessment guide takes longer to administer, yet the interview style allows its completion in separate blocks of time. (2) We utilized this, since the respondents could be available only sporadically.

The second sentence begins, "We utilized this." Clearly "this" must refer to an earlier term. But which one?

I avoid using "this," "these," "that," or "those" (in their demonstrative sense) without adding a noun or noun phrase. For example, the second sentence in the example should begin "This assessment guide . . . " or "This family-assessment guide . . . "

Words such as "this" and "these" are like children under ten. They shouldn't be allowed out by themselves.

Flesch Reading Ease: 67.4 (ideal is 70)
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 6.5

Plain English in Government

In 2006, the Associated Press gave national coverage to Washington State, which wants its employees to speak and write to the public in plain English.

Washington State has paid to send over 2,000 of them to plain-English classes. They learn to avoid legal jargon, acronyms, and pompous language.

The state believes that plain English will get its messages across to citizens and save costly time and misunderstandings. It has simplified the words and organization of its administrative laws. Its Department of Revenue has rewritten a tax letter more clearly and gained $800,000.

So what is plain English?

The AP article does not explain precisely how to simplify "gov-speak." But the U.S. government has an office of Plain English, with a helpful site at http://www.plainlanguage.gov/. President Clinton mandated plain English, as did the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and the NIH (National Institutes of Health; see http://execsec.od.nih.gov/plainlang/index.html).

Linguists have found new ways to simplify and streamline documents. Those are the ones that I teach.

But anyone can start writing plainer English. Write to others as you wish they would write to you. And you can stop worrying about sentences that end with a preposition.

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 8.8
Flesch Reading Ease 53.2 (ideal is 70).