Beyond Plain English
Plain English is a great tool for improving the quality of written documents. Unfortunately, it has significant limitations in many technical environments. We need a special form of language, known as a controlled language, to overcome those limitations.
What is Plain English?
In recent years, plain English has become a hot topic. Many organisations are finding that its use brings commercial benefit. Plain English Campaign's facts page contains these examples:
- Plain English has saved the British Government an estimated £500 million in the last two decades.
- British Aerospace redrafted a 150-page international leasing agreement in just 50 pages. The first time the new document was used, a £120 million deal took just three and a half weeks to complete, instead of the previous average of six months.
So, what is plain English? According to Plain English Campaign (www.plainenglish.co.uk), it is "… something that the intended audience can read, understand and act upon the first time they read it. Plain English takes into account design and layout as well as language."
Plain English Campaign provides an excellent guide to clear writing. For example, guidelines include:
- Keep your sentences short.
- Choose words appropriate for the reader.
- Prefer active verbs.
These guidelines (and many others) for clear writing are recognised by professional writers as best practice. However, words such as 'short' and 'appropriate' are open to interpretation. Tens of thousands of verbs exist in the English language; sometimes two or more verbs have an identical meaning, and sometimes one verb has many different meanings. A similar situation arises with nouns.
Plain English is not sufficiently rigorous in some situations to ensure that the text is unambiguous. We need a controlled language. A controlled language specifies the grammatical structures and the words that you can use. The objective is to obtain a brief and unambiguous text.
ASD Simplified Technical English
ASD Simplified Technical English™ (www.simplifiedenglish-aecma.org) is one particular controlled language. (It was formerly known as AECMA Simplified English.) The specification for the language is called ASD-STE100™. The specification was developed by people in the aerospace industry, but it has applications in commerce and industry. It helps people to write documentation that is unambiguous. The specification provides:
- A dictionary of words and their meanings
- A set of writing rules.
The dictionary contains a list of words that you can use. For example, you can use 'make sure', but you cannot use synonyms such as 'verify', 'check', 'confirm' or 'ensure'.
In general, each word is assigned to just one part of speech. For example, the word 'oil' is specified as a noun. So:
- 'Oil the bearings liberally' is not allowed because in this context 'oil' is a verb.
- 'The oil is contaminated' is allowed because in this context 'oil' is a noun.
Each word has just one meaning. For example, the verb 'to follow' means 'to come after'. It does not mean 'to obey'. Instead of 'Follow the safety instructions' you must write 'Obey the safety instructions'.
The writing rules specify the structure of the text. For example, descriptive sentences must have no more than twenty-five words. (This puts a number on the recommendation to keep sentences short.)
Tenses are strictly controlled. For example, you cannot use the present perfect tense. Typically, you would write the sentence using the simple past tense. Examples:
- 'We have received the technical reports from HQ' is not allowed because it is in the present perfect tense.
- 'We received the technical reports from HQ' is allowed because it is in the simple past tense.
Each industry has its own specialist vocabulary. To accommodate this, ASD Simplified Technical English allows you to create your own dictionary of approved verbs and approved nouns.
Simplified English: for and against
Should we be using ASD Simplified Technical English (or some other simplified English) in commercial and industrial environments?
If you have looked at other pages on the TechScribe web site, you may have noticed that we do not conform to the rules of ASD-STE100 (even just the few rules that are described on this page). That's because the site is (in part) a marketing tool. If someone searches for 'technical communication consultancy', and if our term is 'technical writing consultancy', then we won't be found. That's not good.
Clearly, a simplified English is of no use in the marketing field. We want flexibility of expression and the ability to play on words to entice people into purchasing our products and services.
On the other hand, with safety-critical systems, the last thing we need is ambiguity. Every instruction, every description, must be clear. ASD Simplified Technical English can help us to achieve that requirement. There are limitations to ASD Simplified Technical English, but it goes a long way to ensuring that communications are not ambiguous.
An alternative opinion
Some professional technical writers have a flexible approach. In 'Spring into Technical Writing for Engineers and Scientists' (www.awprofessional.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0131498630&rl=1), Barry Rosenberg suggests that for non-technical verbs, a writer should use synonyms to add variety to the text. I queried this, and Barry kindly gave the following response:
When I refer to a product name, a product component, a scientific concept, or any sort of technical noun, I want to make sure that I refer to this thing in the same consistent way each time. Thus, a "widget" on page 10 cannot become a "gadget" on page 11 and a "doohickey" on page 12. Such name shifts confuse readers. Similarly, if the correct technical verb for the way a widget disintegrates is "to framboozle," then I better make sure that the widget framboozles at every opportunity, even if the widget has to framboozle in sentence after sentence. However, in the "Verbs" section, I was trying to say (unsuccessfully, it would seem) that some writers tend to overuse certain general verbs (for example, "illustrates" or "shows"). For instance, a paragraph that used "shows" in four consecutive sentences would probably be a suboptimal paragraph. In this instance, I think verb variety can be quite helpful.
Editing tools and language checkers
StyleWriter, an editing tool for plain English:
- UK agent: Plain Language Commission (www.clearest.co.uk).
- Worldwide distributors: Editor Software (http://editorsoftware.com).
The following software tools are industrial-strength, and cost many thousands of pounds:
- HyperSE, a checker for AST-STE100, available from Tedopres (www.simplifiedenglish.net).
- MAXit, a controlled English checker, available from Smart Communications, Inc (www.smartny.com).
- Boeing SE Checker (www.boeing.com/phantom/sechecker/index.html).
- Bespoke tools from Mekon (www.mekon.com).
Web sites
DT Publications Ltd (www.dt-publications.com), the distributor for the ASD-STE100 specification in the UK.
ASD, Aerospace and Defense Industries Association of Europe (www.asd-europe.org), formerly AECMA, European Association of Aerospace Industries.
An overview of controlled languages in industry (http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu/HLTsurvey/ch7node8.html).
Plain Language Commission (www.clearest.co.uk), a UK-based commercial organisation that promotes clear English.
Plain Language Action & Information Network (www.plainlanguage.gov), a US federal government initiative that promotes the use of plain language for all government communications.
Plain Language Association International (PLAIN) (www.plainlanguagenetwork.org), an international non-profit organisation of plain language advocates and professionals.
Clarity (www.clarity-international.net), an international association that promotes clear legal language.
See also 
Advantages and disadvantages with Simplified Technical English, Karin Disborg (http://www.diva-portal.org/diva/getDocument?urn_nbn_se_liu_diva-10071-1__fulltext.pdf)
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