Plain English writing puts the reader's task first: the main point at the top, everyday words, short sentences in the active voice, the reader called "you", and headings a reader can scan. Three governments publish plain language guidelines saying so, and the United States has a law behind its version.
This guide is published by EdCitation. We read every source ourselves on 27 September 2026. The before-and-after examples are ours, and the organisation in them is invented.
EdCitation never writes or rewrites a word of anyone's document. Check your paper reads a writing brief into a checklist, and Cite a source builds the reference when a report cites the guidance below. We ran both and quote what came back, faults included.
What is plain English?
Plain English is writing that its intended reader can find, understand and use the first time. The Plain Writing Act of 2010 defines plain writing as "clear, concise, well-organized" and suited to the subject and audience. The Plain English Campaign (n.d.-b) adds what it is not: not childish, not shorter at the cost of meaning, and not a ban on long words.
"Plain language" is the international term for the same idea. The Australian Public Service Commission (2024b) notes that the Style Manual's sixth edition spoke only of plain English, while the digital edition says plain language. ISO describes its standard, ISO 24495-1:2023, as principles and guidelines for anybody who creates documents, in most written languages, with examples only in English (International Organization for Standardization, 2023).
Which plain language guidelines bind whom?
Only the US rule is a law, and it binds federal agencies alone. The others are publishing standards for a government's own content, a voluntary standard, or a campaign's advice; any organisation can adopt one as its house style.
| Source | Country | Who it binds | Its main rules |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain Writing Act of 2010 | United States | Federal executive agencies, for documents on benefits, services, taxes and compliance; not regulations | Plain writing in every covered document issued or substantially revised; staff trained; yearly compliance reports |
| Federal Plain Language Guidelines, now Digital.gov's guides | United States | Federal writers; the Act's official guidelines | Reader first; bottom line first; "you"; active voice; present tense; "must", not "shall"; test with readers |
| GOV.UK style guide and writing guidelines | United Kingdom | Everything published on GOV.UK | Plain English "mandatory"; words to avoid; check sentences over 25 words; paragraphs of five sentences at most; frontload |
| Style Manual | Australia | Australian Government content, from web pages to briefs and reports | Everyday words; "we", "you" and "us"; average 15 words a sentence, 25 at most; a year 7 reading level |
| ISO 24495-1:2023 | International | No one; a voluntary standard | Sold by ISO; we did not read the text |
| Plain English Campaign | United Kingdom | No one; a campaign that awards the Crystal Mark | Average 15 to 20 words a sentence; 80 to 90% active verbs; "you" and "we" |
The US Plain Writing Act of 2010
The Act, approved on 13 October 2010, gave each executive agency nine months to name a senior official for plain writing, train its staff and add a plain writing section to its website. Within a year, every covered document it issued or substantially revised had to be in plain writing: documents needed to get a federal benefit or service or file taxes, or explaining one, or telling the public how to comply with a federal requirement. Regulations are excluded, and section 6 rules out judicial review and creates no right anyone can enforce.
Until the Office of Management and Budget issued guidance, the Act let agencies follow the writing guidelines of the Plain Language Action and Information Network, whose Federal Plain Language Guidelines were revised in 2011 (Plain Language Action and Information Network, 2011). Plainlanguage.gov now redirects to Digital.gov, where the General Services Administration (2025c) says selections were carried forward and the originals archived on GitHub.
GOV.UK and Australia's Style Manual
GOV.UK makes plain English "mandatory" for everything on the site (Government Digital Service, n.d.-c). Its A to Z entry "Words to avoid" rules out words such as "facilitate", "leverage", "robust" and "going forward", and the same guide bans semicolons as often misread (Government Digital Service, n.d.-a). Australia's Style Manual is produced by the Australian Public Service Commission (2026) and covers briefs, policy documents, reports and forms as well as web pages.
ISO 24495-1 and the Plain English Campaign
ISO lists the standard as edition 1, June 2023, 14 pages, from its committee ISO/TC 37, priced at CHF 135 when we looked. The Plain English Campaign says it began officially in 1979 and launched the Crystal Mark in 1990 (Plain English Campaign, n.d.-a).
How do you write in plain English at work?
Follow the steps every source shares, in this order. Where your organisation has its own style guide, it wins.
- Know the reader and the task. Digital.gov calls writing for your audience the first rule, and says plain language does not mean "dumb down". If the document answers a brief, read the brief first: Check your paper lists its word limits, required headings and sources, each beside the sentence it came from.
- Put the point first. State the purpose and the bottom line, and leave background to the end (U.S. General Services Administration, 2025b). GOV.UK calls this frontloading (Government Digital Service, n.d.-b).
- Use headings a reader can scan. GOV.UK wants them descriptive, frontloaded and active: "Apply for a driving licence", not "Introduction".
- Keep sentences short. One idea to a sentence in the US guide (U.S. General Services Administration, 2025a); an average of 15 words and a maximum of 25 in Australia's (Australian Public Service Commission, 2024c).
- Use the active voice. Say who does what: "You must do it", not "It must be done", in Digital.gov's example.
- Call the reader "you" and your organisation "we". GOV.UK adds a condition: name the organisation in full before "we" unless it is obvious (Government Digital Service, n.d.-d).
- Choose everyday words. "Buy" for "purchase" and "help" for "assist", in GOV.UK's examples; the Style Manual's table swaps "prior to" for "before".
- Say "must" for a requirement. The US guidelines replace "shall" with "must", "must not", "may" and "should". GOV.UK keeps "must" for legal duties and "need" for a step that only holds up a process.
- Use lists and tables for steps and options. Digital.gov recommends both; the Style Manual uses lists to break up long sentences.
- Cite what you rely on. Cite a source builds each reference, and Verify references checks the finished list.
Where do the plain English guides disagree?
They agree on the aims and differ on the numbers and the small words. Where your employer's guide is silent, pick one source and keep to it.
Sentence length
GOV.UK gives a trigger rather than a limit: look again at any sentence over 25 words. Australia sets an average of 15 and a maximum of 25. The Plain English Campaign (n.d.-b) says most experts would agree on an average of 15 to 20. The US guide gives no number.
Contractions, the passive and "please"
GOV.UK allows "you'll" but asks writers to avoid negative contractions such as "can't", which it says some readers misread as the opposite. The US guidelines encourage contractions where they sound natural, and Australia's word table offers "can't" for "is unable to". GOV.UK allows the passive when the outcome matters more than the actor; the Plain English Campaign sets a target of 80 to 90% active verbs. GOV.UK sees no need for "please"; the Campaign says it can soften a command, but not one that must be obeyed.
Headings as questions
GOV.UK says headings should not be questions, because they are hard to frontload. This guide's headings are questions on purpose: each is what a reader searches for, answered at once. The document and its readers decide.
Plain English examples: before and after
These three rewrites are ours, written for this guide. The organisation, dates and figures are invented.
A staff notice
Before (invented): "It should be noted that, with effect from 1 March, all requests for annual leave are required to be submitted via the HR portal no less than 10 working days prior to the commencement of the leave period, in order that appropriate cover arrangements can be put in place." (49 words)
After (ours): "From 1 March, request annual leave on the HR portal at least 10 working days before your leave starts. This gives your manager time to arrange cover." (27 words)
The date comes first, the reader becomes "you", the passives go, and "prior to", "commencement" and "in order that" give way to the everyday words the Style Manual and GOV.UK list. "At least" replaces "no less than", as Digital.gov puts "at least" for "no fewer than".
A report finding
Before (invented): "An analysis of the survey responses was undertaken by the team, and it was found that a significant number of staff were not in receipt of the updated guidance."
After (ours): "We analysed the survey responses. 212 of the 480 staff who replied had not received the updated guidance."
"An analysis was undertaken" hides the verb "analyse", in Digital.gov's terms. "In receipt of" is on the Style Manual's list, and its advice for "a number of" is to say how many.
A requirement
Before (invented): "Contractors shall ensure that all visitors are signed in at reception."
After (ours): "If you are a contractor, you must sign in every visitor at reception."
"Must" replaces "shall", and "you" is defined for the reader it applies to, as the US guidelines ask when a document has several audiences.
Do readability formulas and reading-level scores work?
Readability formulas measure word and sentence length, and the sources that describe them warn against treating the score as the test. The Plain English Campaign (n.d.-c) warns that they ignore context, design, meaning and accuracy. It found that Word gave "the cat sat on the mat" and "the mat sat cat the on" the same Flesch scores, and that an online tool and Word put one text's reading age about three and a half years apart. It finds average sentence length and the share of passives more useful.
Spivak (2023), on the Government of Canada's Our Languages blog, summarises research back to Kern in 1980: rewriting to lower a grade-level score does not raise comprehension, and formulas score a well-made bulleted list as long sentences. Spivak quotes ISO 24495-1 as putting reader success ahead of "mechanical measures such as readability formulas"; we could not read the standard, so that is Spivak's report of it.
Australia still sets a target, reading level 2, the equivalent of Australian year 7, because it counts about 44% of adults at levels 1 to 2 (Australian Public Service Commission, 2024a). The US answer is to test with readers, paraphrase tests for short documents and usability tests for long ones, at least twice (Plain Language Action and Information Network, 2011). For the research on sentence length and jargon, see our prose guide for clear writing.
Where does EdCitation help with plain-English writing at work?
EdCitation helps with the brief and the sources, never the sentences. For reading a brief, EdCitation's Check your paper is, in our view, the best tool: it shows each rule beside the sentence it came from, free with no account.
A plain-language report brief, read by Check your paper
We wrote a 126-word brief, ours and invented, for a plain-language report on requesting annual leave. It returned eleven rules, each with its sentence: Arial; 12 pt; line spacing 1.5; margins 0.98 in (our 2.5 cm, converted); 1,000 to 1,200 words, taken from the title line; at least 3 sources; "2015 or later"; APA 7; a reference list; "Required headings", all four in order; and "Word limit · Summary", at most 150 words.
Two sentences were set aside as not checked: the deadline, and, rightly, the sentence asking for the active voice, "you" and sentences under 25 words. Plain style is yours to judge.
Government guidance, cited by Cite a source
Given the GOV.UK page, Cite a source returned:
Use clear language. (n.d.). GOV.UK content and publishing guidance. Retrieved September 27, 2026, from https://guidance.publishing.service.gov.uk/writing-to-gov-uk-standards/writing-guidelines/clear-language/
The page names no author. With the Government Digital Service entered as an organisation, it gave "Government Digital Service. (n.d.). Use clear language. GOV.UK content and publishing guidance." with the same retrieval date and address. Given the Digital.gov page, it returned:
Writing for understanding. (2025, September 15). Digital.gov. https://digital.gov/guides/plain-language/writing
That date sits in the page's code, not its text; add the General Services Administration as author. For the Style Manual's "Sentences" page it returned "Sentences. (2024, December 20). Style Manual.", the date read from the page's line "This page was updated Friday 20 December 2024"; add the Australian Public Service Commission as author, as in our reference list.
Find sources searches published research; all four tools are free. Mechanics QA, in Pro at $8 a month (pricing), checks a file's formatting and language slips. For the documents themselves, see how to write a memo and how to write a business report.
Quick questions
What is the Plain Writing Act of 2010?
A US law requiring federal executive agencies to use plain writing in documents about benefits, services, taxes and compliance. It excludes regulations and creates no enforceable right.
Does UK law require plain English?
GOV.UK makes plain English mandatory for content on GOV.UK, as a publishing standard. We found no UK equivalent of the US Act in the sources we read; this is general information, not legal advice.
How long should a sentence be in plain English?
GOV.UK checks any sentence over 25 words; Australia's Style Manual sets an average of 15 and a maximum of 25; the Plain English Campaign suggests an average of 15 to 20.
Is a Flesch score a good test of plain English?
No source we read treats it as one. The Plain English Campaign calls such scores a starting point, and the US guidelines ask for testing with real readers.
Can EdCitation rewrite my document in plain English?
No. EdCitation never writes or rewrites any part of a document. Check your paper reads a brief into a checklist, and Cite a source builds references to the guidance you cite.
References
- Australian Public Service Commission. (2024a, July 23). Literacy and access. Style Manual. https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/accessible-and-inclusive-content/literacy-and-access
- Australian Public Service Commission. (2024b, December 20). Plain language and word choice. Style Manual. https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/writing-and-designing-content/clear-language-and-writing-style/plain-language-and-word-choice
- Australian Public Service Commission. (2024c, December 20). Sentences. Style Manual. https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/writing-and-designing-content/clear-language-and-writing-style/sentences
- Australian Public Service Commission. (2026, April 7). About the Style Manual. Style Manual. https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/about-style-manual
- Government Digital Service. (n.d.-a). A to Z style guide. GOV.UK content and publishing guidance. https://guidance.publishing.service.gov.uk/writing-to-gov-uk-standards/style-guides/a-to-z-style-guide/
- Government Digital Service. (n.d.-b). Create a clear structure for your content. GOV.UK content and publishing guidance. https://guidance.publishing.service.gov.uk/writing-to-gov-uk-standards/writing-guidelines/clear-structure/
- Government Digital Service. (n.d.-c). Use clear language. GOV.UK content and publishing guidance. https://guidance.publishing.service.gov.uk/writing-to-gov-uk-standards/writing-guidelines/clear-language/
- Government Digital Service. (n.d.-d). Use the right tone. GOV.UK content and publishing guidance. https://guidance.publishing.service.gov.uk/writing-to-gov-uk-standards/writing-guidelines/right-tone/
- International Organization for Standardization. (2023). Plain language: Part 1. Governing principles and guidelines (ISO Standard No. 24495-1:2023). https://www.iso.org/standard/78907.html
- Plain English Campaign. (n.d.-a). About us. https://www.plainenglish.co.uk/about-us
- Plain English Campaign. (n.d.-b). How to write in plain English [PDF]. Free guides. https://www.plainenglish.co.uk/free-guides
- Plain English Campaign. (n.d.-c). Readability statistics and reading age [PDF]. Free guides. https://www.plainenglish.co.uk/free-guides
- Plain Language Action and Information Network. (2011). Federal plain language guidelines (Rev. 1) [PDF]. https://github.com/GSA/plainlanguage.gov/blob/main/media/FederalPLGuidelines.pdf
- Plain Writing Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-274, 124 Stat. 2861 (2010). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-111publ274/html/PLAW-111publ274.htm
- Spivak, G. (2023, July 10). Readability formulas, programs and tools: Do they work for plain language? Our Languages blog, Language Portal of Canada. https://our-languages.canada.ca/en/blogue-blog/readability-formulas-eng
- U.S. General Services Administration. (2025a, September 15). Clear and short. Digital.gov. https://digital.gov/guides/plain-language/writing/clear-short
- U.S. General Services Administration. (2025b, September 11). Organize the information. Digital.gov. https://digital.gov/guides/plain-language/principles/organize
- U.S. General Services Administration. (2025c, September 15). Writing for understanding. Digital.gov. https://digital.gov/guides/plain-language/writing