Great news! My book is nominated in the “Best In” category for a ClearMark Plain Language Award. The Center for Plain Language sponsors the competition, and my book is a ClearMark Award Finalist.
From the Center:
- The ClearMark Awards recognize the best in plain language writing. Award-worthy entries are reader/user-focused, easy to understand, visually accessible, and make a real impact in people’s lives.
- The awards recognize the best English, French, and Spanish plain language content. The Center judges submissions with a high standard for clarity and simplicity. Applicants represent North American companies, governments, and organizations.
- The annual competition recognizes organizations and individuals who transform complex content into clear and concise materials across various industries.
- The “Best In” awards honor the standout entries across all categories. These entries impressed our judges in unique or unexpected ways.
As a ClearMark Award Finalist, I’ll join other Center members and guests for the ceremony on May 22, 2025. It will be at the National Press Club.
In my application, I outlined the steps I took to ensure content clarity, visual simplicity, and reader engagement. They included incorporating feedback from 20 different reviewers, verifying reader ease scores, and reading the entire book aloud three times.
Next, I collated those tips into this video to share with others. In it, I describe the best practices I applied to achieve a user-focused approach in writing my book.
Similarly, I teach this material in my one-hour plain language overview course. Titled, The Art of Simplicity, the interactive workshop explains simplified writing techniques for businesses and individuals. It sounds easy, but it’s a big challenge for experts to communicate effectively with different audiences. Often, the results are confusing instead of clarifying. In my course, I break plain language down into the five easy steps. Attendees learn how to communicate better and save time and money.
For more information about plain language or the writing workshops I teach, please see the services section of this site.