From the Editor in Chief

Abstract

O N E of the least-noted pieces of legislation from the last Congress was the Plain Writing Act of 2010 (Public Law 111-274). The law resulted in a document, Federal Plain Language Guidelines (Plain Language Action and Information Network, 2011), that makes for interesting (dare I say provocative?) reading for those involved in academic writing and those considering submitting manuscripts to The Elementary School Journal. Although this law was intended to apply only to communications and reports from the federal government, it has serious implications for our field that go well beyond the language used in public documents and the lengthy technical reports that accompany major federal evaluations. I believe these guidelines could help many more professionals in the field understand what researchers have accomplished. Rather than address all the points made by the authors of the Guidelines, I will highlight a few and supplement them with material from a recent New York Times blog that included tips for writers (Hale, 2012). Though the federal documents and Constance Hale’s New York Times blog are written in radically different styles, they share a common purpose—the pursuit of clarity. Both aspire to guide authors in how to communicate the often-complex material we address in clear and comprehensible language. In other words, how can we write so that readers do not have to read and reread the same paragraph several times to comprehend the material? How can we write in a way that lets readers understand the purpose of the article and remember the salient findings? Obviously, writing skills develop over time and require a good deal more than adherence to a small set of writing tips and guidelines. Nonetheless, these guidelines can help. In this piece, I will describe a few. Others can be found in the sources. The emphasis will be on those that matter the most to me or that I have found the most helpful. 1. Excess verbiage: Hale notes, “Writing style begins with clarity: Find the right words, and decide what to leave out” (2012). Focus heavily on removal of excess verbiage; from the Guidelines: “Unnecessary words waste your audience’s time. . . . great . . . content is like a conversation. Omit information that