National Year of Reading: half the story

The National Year of Reading (www.yearofreading.org.uk) was launched on 31 March 2008. Its sponsors have noble aims: to encourage people to read in businesses, homes, and communities in England.

The organisation suggests that businesses have an important role to play and the business engagement campaign encourages businesses across the country to get involved in the National Year of Reading.

'Everything starts with reading' is the headline banner on every page of the website. Certainly, it's a catchy title, but it's just half the story. The local Chamber of Commerce suggests that businesses need employees who can read and write well enough to follow written instructions and operate computerised and technological equipment. That's true, but it's not sufficient. Communication is a two-way activity.

Reading requires effort by the reader. However, writers can help to reduce the reader's effort by writing clearly. Far too many businesses spew out corporate drivel in their general communications, and technobabble in their technical documentation. It's convoluted, unstructured, and vague. Readers often struggle to understand this text.

Challenges for businesses (www.yearofreading.org.uk/index.php?id=82&chcat=5) lists many activities that people in business can do to promote reading.

TechScribe would like to add another challenge for businesses: clarify unclear text so that it conforms to best practice guidelines. Employees could seek out examples of unclear text, which the 'owner' of the text could then re-write.