Plain Language Community In Other Countries
Governments and private organizations around the world support plain language. Many of these programs have been in place for much longer than our effort here in the United States.External links are shown with a "
".
Plain Language Association International includes professionals who plan, write, design, and create communications projects to better serve the needs of the public, clients, customers, students, and staff. Their site provides free plain language articles, writing tutorials, Web links, news, networking opportunities, professional support, and an e-mail discussion group.
Clarity is a worldwide group of lawyers and interested lay people. Its aim is the use of good, clear language by the legal profession.
Sweden has one of the oldest programs. It’s managed by the Ministry of Justice . Even bills headed to the legislature go through plain language editing. In fall 2004, a representative of the Ministry of Justice spoke at the kickoff of Mexico’s new plain language program: Plain language in Sweden, the results after 30 years.
The United Kingdom has two different private sector groups supporting plain language:
The Plain Language Commission accredits public documents and websites with the Clear English Standard logo and provides training in plain language.
The Plain English Campaign is an independent pressure group fighting for public information to be written in plain English.
The government of Mexico kicked off a program in 2004 fostering plain language in government writing
In Australia, plain language has become a commercial success. Demand for clear language has increased, and law firms that provide plain-language legal products are finding success. Two leading sources of plain language legal expertise are Cleardocs and Plainlanguage.org.
The European Commission has created a guide
for writing clearly in several languages.
Portugal's government has announced a new program, SIMPLEGIS, with the goal of simplifying its legal system and make it clearer, allowing people and businesses have more certainty, security, and clarity in the rules that apply to them.
