Plain English Manual

Chapter 3 - Language: good writing habits

WHO ARE OUR READERS?

48. You have to strike a balance between precision and simplicity. To do this, it helps to know who your readers are and why they read the law. For example, tax laws are scrutinised with infinite care by professional advisers looking for ways to minimise tax. They must be drafted very precisely to have the right effect. On the other hand, provisions defining the functions of an advisory body don’t have to be nearly so precise.

49. This doesn’t mean that tax laws needn’t be drafted simply, or that laws establishing authorities needn’t be precise. It’s a question of balance. You have to decide how much emphasis to give to precision and how much to simplicity.

50. Sometimes you can decide who most of the users of a law will be, and then deliberately aim at them, as in the case of the Social Security Act 1991. However, we usually write for a variety of users, and all our laws are also read by administrators, members of Parliament, lawyers and the judiciary. Legislative drafters are possibly the only people who habitually write highly technical documents for such a wide range of readers.

51. There isn’t a complete solution to this problem. The best you can do is avoid all unnecessary complexity. If you use the various techniques of simple drafting, you can reduce complexity to the minimum that is forced on you by the subject matter.

SENTENCES

Well constructed sentences

52. Construct your sentences simply and logically. Some ways of doing this are:

Use the positive rather than the negative.
Example say “a form is valid only if the taxpayer has signed it”
don’t say “a form is not valid unless the taxpayer has signed it”.
Avoid double and triple negatives. But remember that sometimes a double negative doesn’t equal a positive.
Example “the Secretary has not certified that the grantee has not made an application” is not the same as “the Secretary has certified that the grantee has made an application”.
Avoid complicated or unusual grammatical constructions.
Example don’t put long phrases in parentheses in the middle of sentences.
Use the active voice rather than the passive voice.
Example say “the Authority serves a notice”
don’t say “a notice is served by the Authority”.
Put adverbial phrases after the verb when there’s no ambiguity.
Example say “the Minister may issue the licence within 30 days after receiving the application”
don’t say “the Minister may, within 30 days after receiving the application, issue the licence”.
Use paragraphs to separate lists of alternative or cumulative matter from the main structure of the sentence.
Avoid excessive shortness if adding some words would make a phrase or sentence easier to understand.
Keep related words as close together as possible.
Example keep the subject close to the verb
keep auxiliary verbs (is, are, must, has, etc) close to the main verbs
keep modifiers close to the words they modify.
Use parallel structures to express similar ideas.
Example don’t mix conditions and exceptions, or “if” and “unless” clauses, in the same sentence.
Avoid noun strings (nouns strung together to act as adjectives).
Example say “grants for programs for providing child care”
don’t say “child care delivery program grants”.
Avoid the false subject “there is”, “there are”, etc. It adds extra words, and usually creates an unnecessary relative.
Example don’t say “if there are any conditions that do not comply with this section”
say “if any conditions do not comply with this section”.
Don’t use the “such ... as” form when it’s not necessary.
Example say “take appropriate steps”, not “take such steps as are appropriate”
say “conditions determined by the Minister”, not “such conditions as are determined by the Minister”.
Don’t use demonstrative adjectives if you don’t have to.
Example say “the company” or “the notice”, not “that company” or “that notice” (but “that time” is usually less ambiguous than “the time”).
Apart from being more logical, this avoids the occasional occurrence of the expression “that that” as in the phrase “has the result that that company ...”.
When you use “other than”, make it clear which words are qualified by the phrase.
Example say “a person (other than a policeman) who is under 60”, not “a person other than a policeman who is under 60”.
Don’t use “being” and “not being” to join relative clauses.
Example don’t say “ a person who is 70 or over, being a person who has a driving licence”
say “a person who is 70 or over and has a driving licence”.

If ... then

53. Some writers on plain English say that you shouldn’t put a conditional clause before the main verb. Some even say that Turkish and Japanese are the only languages that do this. On the contrary, it’s perfectly natural in English as well as in many other languages.

54. In drafting, you often need to put the conditional clauses first because they spell out all the facts, and the main clause would be meaningless without them. However, if the main clause is very simple and the conditional clauses are long and/or numerous, put the main clause first. This way, the reader knows what it’s about before ploughing through the paragraphs.
Example say:
“A contract is void if it:
(a) ...; or
(b) ...; or
(c) ...; or (etc)”
don’t say:
“If a contract:
(a) ...; or
(b) ...; or
(c) ...; or (etc)
the contract is void.”.

Short sentences

55. Usually a sentence has a beginning, a middle and an end. The reader can’t be sure of its structure until reaching the end, so a long sentence forces the reader to hold a number of ideas in suspense. The relationship of those ideas isn’t clear until the structure of the sentence is finally known.

56. Also, the more suspended ideas there are in a sentence, the more difficult it is to see its structure. Further, a long sentence presents a large number of ideas all at once. Research has shown that the average reader can hold only a few ideas at a time in the memory, before needing to pause and put them together.

57. These are some ways of keeping sentences short:

Be ruthless in eliminating unnecessary words.
Keep lengthy qualifying clauses (eg exceptions, conditions, etc) out of the main proposition and deal with them in separate subsections or even separate sentences in the same provision.
Avoid strings of alternative words, especially if they appear more than once in the sentence. Use a short generic word to cover the alternatives, and define it separately if necessary.
Don’t obscure the structure of an “operative provision” by filling it with descriptions of complicated concepts. Use short terms in the operative provision and define them separately.
Don’t make verbs into nouns. Using the verb form results in fewer words and the words are usually shorter.
Example say “a person may apply”, not “a person may make application”
say “in determining the question”, not “in the determination of the question”
say “giving advice”, not “the giving of advice”
say “acquiring “, not “the acquisition of”.

Use definitions

58. You can use definitions not only to give precision to a term or phrase but also to shorten your text. If you need to use a phrase of 2 or more words many times, consider giving it a short “label” and defining it.

59. You can also reduce complicated concepts to definitions and use the defined terms in the operative provision. This dramatically shortens the operative provision and makes its structure easier to understand. Some advocates of plain English argue against this, particularly if you create what they call “artificial concepts”. However, the gain in simplicity of the operative provision outweighs the possible disadvantages of using definitions.

60. If possible, choose distinctive “labels” that give a clue to the meaning of defined terms. The traditional style often uses colourless terms like “the prescribed amount” or “the relevant person”. These make a provision harder to understand, especially if there are 2 or more terms of this kind in a complicated provision. It’s usually possible to find a key word that helps the reader keep the meaning of the term in mind.

61. Try to keep defined terms short. The “label” can be short because the details are set out in the definition.

62. Don’t overuse definitions. Don’t define a phrase if it’s brief and isn’t used very often. Don’t define a subsidiary concept solely for use in another definition unless spelling it out would make the main definition too complicated.

WORDS

Short words

63. It’s a general rule of good style to use short words instead of long ones. This is particularly important in legislative drafting, because inevitably some sentences are long and/or complex. Long words make sentences harder to understand.

64. Of course it can be argued that using a short word rather than a long one in a particular sentence may make only a small improvement in readability. However, if you try to use short words whenever you can, you develop the habit in all your drafting, and the overall effect is a simpler style.

Acronyms

65. Sometimes you can avoid repeating lengthy expressions by using acronyms, eg “CFCs” for “chlorofluorocarbons”, or “AFP” for “Australian Federal Police”. It’s best if the acronyms are used in common speech, but there’s nothing wrong with inventing new ones if the full expressions are long and are repeated many times in the text. Make sure you define all your acronyms, even familiar ones.
Example “AFP” means the Australian Federal Police;
“PDF” (pooled development fund) means a company in relation to which a registration declaration is in force.

Jargon and technical terms

66. Avoid jargon, legalisms and foreign language if you can use familiar words or expressions instead. On the other hand, use technical words and phrases if they’re generally understood by most of the users of the law or you can’t find simple alternatives that are precise enough.

67. If a wide range of people use the law, define the technical terms for the benefit of those who may not know them (if you can define them briefly and accurately). But if only specialists are likely to read it, eg an Act dealing with admiralty jurisdiction, there’s no need to define terms of art like “action in rem” and “action in personam”. Similarly, in a general law, sections on evidence don’t need to define “prima facie”, because those sections are mainly relevant to lawyers.