Gamer Girl here. I'm in Jan Fogarty, and today I'm talking with the wonderful Iva

Chung about writing with plain language. Iva essentially has a PhD in this topic and has been

on committees that determine the plain language standards in Canada and teaches plain language writing at two

different universities. Plus, she's won multiple Canadian editing award. So we are in good hands

today. Iva, welcome to the Grammar Girl podcast. Thank you so much. This is a huge honor. I've been a big

fan for a long time. Oh, I am just so grateful to have you here. I've been a fan of your work, too,

for a long time. So mutual admiration. You know, I can't believe that I've never done a show

on plain language writing. It's such an important skill to have, and I'm thrilled to have you

talk about it. But I think there are a lot of misconceptions. So let's start by making sure, you know,

everyone understands what we're talking about. Yeah, absolutely. And you're right, there are a lot

of misconceptions. And when I tell people that I do plain language work, sometimes they think that

it's all about writing short sentences with short words or writing to a certain grade level, right? If it's at a grade

six level or a grade eight level, then it's automatically in plain language. Unfortunately,

things are not quite so simple. Plain language does actually have an official definition

that was adopted in 2014 by the International Plain Language Federation.

And you'll find variants of it floating around online, but they more or less say the same

thing.

And basically what plain language, what the definition says is that a communication is in

plain language, if its wording, structure, and design are so clear that its intended audience

can easily find what they need, understand what they find, and use that information to meet their

needs. And I know that there's a lot to unpack there. So I'm happy to go step by step.

Yeah, let's first talk about, you know, structure and design.

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