Telecom New Zealand Limited — Annette Hamilton
Winner: Best Plain English Sentence Transformation 2012
Judge Maryland Spencer of WriteBrand Communications with Annette Hamilton of Telecom
Original sentence
One of our technicians will enable the DSL port on the DSLAM at our exchange and we will send you an e-text when ADSL is active on your line.
Rewritten sentence
Your broadband connection is underway. We will send you a text message when it is ready for you to use.
Judges' comment
Our automatic verbal response to this rewrite was ‘Nice!’ It captures, clarifies, and enhances the meaning of the original, which was obscured by technical waffle. It is punchy and concise, and its language and tone capture the reader for instant comprehension. The ‘don’t hurt my brain’ principle is perfectly applied.
Media statement
I am excited to be named as a winner for this year's WriteMark Plain English Awards for the work we have done transforming help content for our customers one sentence at a time. Open communication is a real value of ours at Telecom and over the past two years we have seen customer satisfaction on our telecom help site double as a result of rewriting articles using our Plain English writing standard. Whether our customer is learning about their new mobile phone or setting up broadband for the first time our goal is to make it simple for them. On a personal note, I have always been a Plain English Champion. I was inspired by my fifth form English teacher who gave me the great advice that I shouldn't try use big words as they only cause confusion for both the writer and the reader.
Annette Hamilton
Business Change Lead
2012 Awards winners and finalists