Telecom New Zealand Limited — Annette Hamilton
Finalist: Best Plain English Sentence Transformation 2012
from 'Manually enable roaming on iPhone'
Original sentence
To manually enable roaming settings on an iPhone and activate it on a new international carrier’s network complete the below steps.
Rewritten sentence
If your iPhone does not automatically connect when you are roaming overseas follow these instructions. When you return to New Zealand you will need to reverse this.
Judges' comment
Te rewrite added great value. It not only used clearer language, but added new information for context, and further valid information in the second sentence.
Media statement
I am excited to be named as a finalist 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