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]]>We’re encouraged by the amount of interest people are showing in next year’s Awards. We hope this is a sign that our goal of creating a public preference for plain English is working!
So that you’re ready when the time comes, here are the dates you need to know for the 2020 Awards.
- Entries open: Tuesday, 31 March
- Entries close: Friday, 29 May
- Shortlist announced: Thursday, 18 June
- Finalists announced: Thursday, 23 July
- Winners announced: Thursday, 20 August
Find out more about entering the 2020 Plain English Awards
Email us to find out about sponsorship options for next year’s Awards
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]]>The post New Australian awards recognise excellence in clear communication appeared first on Plain English Awards.
]]>Australia now has its very own awards to recognise excellence in clear communication and plain language. The Clear Communication Awards aim to help people readily participate in society by being able to easily understand essential communications from government and business.
The founders of the Awards believe that being able to understand a message on first reading is not only important — sometimes it’s life-saving. This notion played a big part in motivating the three Melbourne professionals to create the Awards. And they were of course partly inspired by our own Plain English Awards!
‘We want to find information quickly and for it to be bite-size. We don’t have the tolerance or desire to work hard, and any difficulty will send us back to Google to find an alternative,’ says Joh Kirby, one of the organisers.
Announcing the winners
The winners of the inaugural 2019 awards have just been announced. You can find out about the winners on the Clear Communication Awards website:
https://clearcommunication.com.au/2019winners/
The fine array of finalists deserves a mention too:
https://clearcommunication.com.au/2019finalists/
Let’s also applaud the organisers
We know that running a successful awards programme takes a lot of commitment from the organisers and volunteers involved. Among those who dedicate their time is a long list of international plain language and communication experts who judge each category. Congratulations on a successful first year!
Read more about the Australian Clear Communication Awards on their website
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]]>The post Announcing this year’s shortlists appeared first on Plain English Awards.
]]>After the first phase of judging in this year’s People’s Choice Awards, our two expert judging panels have agreed on their shortlists.
Who made it to our Best shortlist?
The following nominations have been shortlisted for our People’s Choice — Best Plain English Communication Award:
- Accuro Health Insurance — www.accuro.co.nz
- Commonsense Organics — commonsenseorganics.co.nz
- Simplicity — simplicity.kiwi
- Simplicity Classrooms — simplicity.kiwi/learn/classrooms
- Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment — www.tenancy.govt.nz
- Western Bay of Plenty Primary Health Organisation — www.wboppho.org.nz/why-you-should-enrol
Who made it to our Worst shortlist?
The following nominations have been shortlisted for our People’s Choice — Worst Brainstrain Award:
- Auckland City Council — Proposed Plan Change letter
- Christchurch City Council — Te Wai Ora o Tāne Draft Integrated Water Strategy
- Rabo Capital Securities Limited — Redemption Notice letter
What happens next
Our judges will review all shortlisted entries in greater detail. They’ll then decide on this year’s finalists.
We’ll announce the finalists on Thursday, 17 October.
Our media partner, Newsroom, will announce this year’s winners on their website on Thursday, 28 November.
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]]>The post A partnership worth a thousand words appeared first on Plain English Awards.
]]>Working alone has its benefits. But joining forces with someone else can be even better.
We’re excited to announce that we have an official media partner for this year’s People’s Choice Awards — the independent news and current affairs website Newsroom. Many of you will know Newsroom, a New Zealand site with a team of award-winning journalists. This team produces quality written and video stories that set the national news agenda and inform intelligent conversations at every level of New Zealand life.
Focusing on people, progress, and democracy
One of the many traits we love about Newsroom is their focus on delivering ‘in-depth storytelling for thinking audiences with an interest in the people, progress, and democracy of Aotearoa’.
‘Newsroom and the Awards share some important values,’ says Gregory Fortuin, Chair of the WriteMark Plain English Awards Trust.
‘We’re both interested in the progress of Aotearoa and in how New Zealanders exercise their democratic rights. At the Awards we believe that clear communication is the democratic right of every New Zealander.’
What this partnership means for the Awards
As our media partner, Newsroom will be helping to spread the word about our Awards. They’ll also officially announce our winners on Thursday, 28 November. We’ll direct you to their site for these announcements, if you don’t get there earlier. And all other announcements, including shortlists and finalists, will continue to be published on our Awards site.
When to look out for results
Our judges’ decisions will be announced on the following dates.
- Shortlist announced: Thursday, 19 September
- Finalists announced: Thursday, 17 October
- Winners announced: Thursday, 28 November
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]]>The post Gobbledygook — it’s really not okay appeared first on Plain English Awards.
]]>It shouldn’t take more than one reading to decipher a passage of text.
How often do you ponder a passage of text that you just can’t untangle on one reading? Every day, I expect. Today’s special for me was an email from a software firm that included terms like ‘personalisation’, ‘confidentiality provision’, ‘ecosystem partners’, ‘beta participants’, ‘busywork’ — and more!
One or two of these terms I could manage and, to be fair, the writer was trying to summarise a larger document that was even more complex. But the two very long paragraphs in the email were jam-packed with similar terms. So the overall result was that the email missed its mark. The text was dense and difficult to decipher, so I didn’t really bother to try.
Tell us about giving up on gobbledygook
Gobbledygook hides the main messages. The reader has to struggle to understand. And that makes our busy lives even busier. If they give up, they’ve wasted their time. It’s not okay.
The People’s Choice Awards give you the chance to find examples of gobbledygook in everyday communications and dob them in. Nominate the worst communications you’ve found for the Brainstrain Award. You can nominate documents or webpages from government or business organisations.
We’d love to hear from you so we can help to stamp out gobbledygook. This is your chance to change the way New Zealand communicates!
Find out about the 2018 Brainstrain winner here
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]]>The post Fly my pretties! What happens to your entries after you press ‘submit’ appeared first on Plain English Awards.
]]>Submitting your entry in this year’s People’s Choice Awards is one thing. What happens to your entry after that is another.
Your nomination joins the list so experts can decide who’s best and worst
After you submit a nomination, it joins a catalogue of other entries in our professional submission platform Submittable, where it’ll sit until entries officially close. Soon after that, the Awards administrators open up entries for the Best and Worst categories to their respective judging panels.
Our judges then sort through entries to come up with a shortlist, followed by a more in-depth assessment to create a list of finalists.
Finally, the judges decide which entries are our ultimate winners. This year’s winners will be announced on Thursday, 28 November.
The judges assess the entries using plain English criteria
Because our Awards are all about plain English, our judges use specific criteria to decide which entries are best and which are worst. These criteria are based on the following aspects of clear communication:
- Purpose
- Structure
- Usability (for websites)
- Headings and main messages
- Paragraphs
- Sentences
- Words
- Layout and presentation
Read more about our judging criteria
Find out how to nominate communications
Thanks to the Wellington band Fly My Pretties for being the inspiration for our blog title! Visit their website flymypretties.com
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