> Government experts often say that because they’re writing technical or complex content for a specialist audience, they do not need to use plain English. This is wrong.
> Research shows that higher literacy people prefer plain English because it allows them to understand the information as quickly as possible.
> For example, research into use of specialist legal language in legal documents found:
> 80% of people preferred sentences written in clear English - and the more complex the issue, the greater that preference (for example, 97% preferred ‘among other things’ over the Latin ‘inter alia’)
> the more educated the person and the more specialist their knowledge, the greater their preference for plain English
> People understand complex specialist language, but do not want to read it if there’s an alternative. This is because people with the highest literacy levels and the greatest expertise tend to have the most to read. They do not have time to pore through reams of dry, complicated prose.
> This makes total sense to me. Simple language makes room for complex ideas.
My takeaway is slightly different: simple words (familiar) are easier to digest than big words (unfamiliar) because familiar words will be parsed very quickly for most people than unfamiliar words.
I prefer to use the categorization of “familiar” vs “unfamiliar” because the categorization of a word as “big” or “simple” depends largely on the reading ability of the person making the assessment.
> Research shows that higher literacy people prefer plain English because it allows them to understand the information as quickly as possible.
> For example, research into use of specialist legal language in legal documents found:
> 80% of people preferred sentences written in clear English - and the more complex the issue, the greater that preference (for example, 97% preferred ‘among other things’ over the Latin ‘inter alia’)
> the more educated the person and the more specialist their knowledge, the greater their preference for plain English
> People understand complex specialist language, but do not want to read it if there’s an alternative. This is because people with the highest literacy levels and the greatest expertise tend to have the most to read. They do not have time to pore through reams of dry, complicated prose.
someone linked this above: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/content-design/writing-for-gov-u...