If you are to communicate effectively, you must use writing that has good readability. To put that another way, if people cannot understand what you write, then your writing has failed.
At the time of writing (August 2011), the Australian Federal Government has just sent a pamphlet to all Australians. Called ‘What a carbon price means for you’, it relates to a new government program.
The Introduction to the pamphlet is an excellent example of writing with clear simplicity to create good communication.
The Sample
Here is the introduction. I suggest that you read it slowly and carefully – in a moment I’ll discuss not only how readable it is, but also what tricks have been employed to make it work so well.
This booklet contains information about the Government’s comprehensive plan to move Australia to a clean energy future.
It is a plan for all Australians. It will cut pollution and drive investment in cleaner energy sources, such as solar, gas and wind, along with new energy sources like geothermal and wave energy.
From 1 July next gear, subject to legislation being passed, the biggest polluters will pay for every tonne of carbon pollution they put into the atmosphere.
The carbon price package will ensure that by the end of the decade Australia will cut 160 million tonnes of pollution from the atmosphere each year. That’s the equivalent of taking 45 million cars off the road.
Some of the costs paid by polluters will be passed through to the prices of the goods you buy. That is why over half of the money raised from the carbon price will be used to fund tax cuts, pension increases and higher family payments. The remaining money will be invested to support jobs and help to build Australia’s clean energy future.
This booklet is designed to help you learn more about the new financial assistance you and your family may receive.
This assistance will be delivered through ongoing increases in payments and two rounds of tax cuts. This will help you plan your part to cut carbon pollution and look after your household budget at the same time.
You can visit the www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au website to find out what payments and tax cuts you may receive. The website will also provide you with ideas on how to cut power bills and pollution without cutting back on life’s essentials.
Putting a price on carbon is a big change for Australia — but it will help protect the economy, environment and future generations.
- extract from What a carbon price means to you, Commonwealth of Australia, August 2011. (Licensed from the Commonwealth of Australia under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License.)
Readability
The first step is to run Word’s Readability function across the passage. Doing so generates the result shown here. Let’s analyse what Word has indicated.
The passage is just under 300 words – a good length for an introduction.
It uses only 1.6 sentences per paragraph – that’s excellent. Short paragraphs are much more effective than long ones.
Its average word length is only 4.7 characters (great!) and most critically, the average length of sentence is around 20 words. (In my training in writing I recommend an average of 20 words per sentence.)
Passive sentences comprise only 33 per cent of the content (see here for more on active and passive sentences).
Finally, Word rates the passage as having a Flesch Reading Ease of 55 (very good) and the required years of education of a reader (the Flesch Kincaid score) of just over 10. To put the latter a different way, readers who left school after only Year 10 would be able to read this introduction.
Tricks
In addition to the use of short words and short sentences (and those techniques should never be underestimated!), what other ‘tricks’ has the writer employed?
The use of the words ‘you’ and ‘your’ – they are used no less than 21 times! Using personal pronouns makes a strong connection with the reader.
Effective cohesion – the writer links sentences and paragraphs to promote flow. For example:
Some of the costs paid by polluters will be passed through to the prices of the goods you buy. That is why…
The ‘That is why…’ links the second sentence back to the first. (To see this more clearly, try reading the ‘That is why’ without first reading the sentence that preceded it. You can see the ‘That is why’ doesn’t make sense unless you have read that earlier sentence.)
This booklet is designed to help you learn more about the new financial assistance you and your family may receive.
This assistance…
The use of ‘This assistance…’ links the beginning of the second paragraph to the ‘assistance’ described in the para above.
Tone – look at how there is a complete absence of bureaucratic language and very few government buzzwords and terms. Note also the empathic language like “…provide you with ideas on how to cut power bills and pollution without cutting back on life’s essentials”.
Conclusion
In summary, what makes this an effective document?
- Short words, short sentences, short paragraphs
- Use of personal pronouns
- Good cohesion (flow)
- Effective tone for the audience
Julian can be contacted directly or courses in writing can be arranged through training provider Anne Jenkins and Associates.
