Plain language writing means using short sentences. 

Short sentences are easier to:

• read and understand because they limit the scope of an idea
• scan because they have fewer words, phrases and clauses than long sentences.

It’s easy to lose your message in a long sentence. 

Rules for sentence length:

Please check the examples in ‘Use structure to make it readable: bullet lists’. 

The items in each list:

Using active voice is a plain language principle. We recommend active voice for government writing.

There are 2 voices in sentence construction:

Headings are signposts for people. They make content easy to scan. People using assistive technologies can navigate documents and webpages using headings. Search engines use headings to index webpages.

Keywords

Headings state the main point of the content that follows. But the first 2 or 3 words in a heading might be all that people read. It’s important to begin headings with keywords that grab attention.

The rules for numbers in general (not technical) content are:

‘It’s’ and ‘its’ are short words that are easy to use incorrectly. Here are 2 rules to help you.

Rule 1: write ‘it’s’ when you mean ‘it is’

Here’s a tip to help you use ‘you and me’ and ‘you and I’ correctly.

Simply take ‘you and’ out of the sentence. If the sentence still makes sense, then you’ve used the correct phrase.

The order of words in a sentence is very important to its meaning. A standard sentence uses the order readers expect: subject–verb–object.

It’s easy to misinform readers by getting the word order wrong. If you do get it wrong, you should rewrite or punctuate to impose order and meaning.

When you write for government, use Australian English and use it consistently. This helps readers to focus on the message. It also builds their trust.

Your agency is likely to have a preferred dictionary. We recommend the:

• Australian concise Oxford dictionary (ACOD)
• Macquarie dictionary (Macquarie).

Dictionaries describe how people use words. They don’t prescribe rules for using them. This means word entries often include more than one way to spell a word.

The first part of this tip (Write this) uses a good structure to explain effective paragraphs.

The second part (Not this) uses the same words. However, there are no headings or lists, and it has longer sentences in an illogical order. Paragraphs also appear in the wrong order. The result is a choppy narrative that is hard to understand.