Plain Language In-Class Exercise

Fall 2024

Goal of Plain Language, from the reading:

The broader goal of Plain Language is to prevent cognitively disabled people from being left “out of the loop” on information most of the community can access with little difficulty.

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This includes information vital to health, safety, legal rights and opportunities, and financial security.

Exercise 1: Inaccessible, vital information (1/2)

• Split into groups of 5
• What kind of info/documents are essential to health, safety, legal rights and opportunities, and financial security?
• Find an example
• In what ways does it meet the plain language guidelines? In which ways does it not?

Exercise 1: Inaccessible, vital information (2/2)

• Legal documents
• City municipal codes/laws/bills
• Financial info (loans, mortgages, benefits)
• Emergency/disaster preparation plans and relief
• What else?

Exercise 2: Community-built solutions (1/2)

• Like the example of the free, plain language version of Alice Wong’s book– communities, orgs, states are finding ways to make language accessible
• Examples:
• WA state has been involved in plain language since mid-90s: https://www.plainlanguage.gov/resources/articles/plain-talk-in-washington/
• There are disabled communities making laws, bills accessible with help of AI: https://policy-dashboard.newdisabledsouth.org
• Info-sharing like Wikipedia has a Simple English version: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Exercise 2: Community-built solutions (2/2)

• Choose a community-based simple language site:
• https://policy-dashboard.newdisabledsouth.org
• https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
• In a group of 5:
• Go to Policy Dashboard, find a bill or law that interests you OR Wikipedia article
• Compare the original text to the simplified text
• For wikipedia, switch “simple” in URL to “en” to find simple version
• “Grade” the simplified text based on the class criteria
• How can it be better?

Exercise 3: Using AI for text simplification (1/2)

• There are a lot of documents/materials out there that are not in plain language.
• I.e. Majority of Wiki articles do not have Simple version, and Simple versions often lacking quality or are summaries rather than true simplified versions
• AI tools (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grammarly) can help– but there are trade-offs

Exercise 3: Using AI for text simplification (2/2)

• In groups of 5, choose a document. Choose an AI tool. Have it produce a simplified version of a document of your choice.
• You decide the prompt etc.
• Compare the AI outputs to the class guidelines. What did the AI do well? Where did it fall short?