Plain English movements: the Campaign, the Act, the research

The plain English movement is the long effort to make official, legal and business writing clear to the people who must read it. Its two best-known landmarks are Britain's Plain English Campaign, launched in London in 1979, and the US Plain Writing Act of 2010, which binds federal agencies. Behind both sit decades of readability research, much of which turned the movement away from its first tool, the readability formula (Schriver, 2017).

EdCitation publishes this guide, built from the Campaign's own pages, the Act and its bill history, presidential orders, the plainlanguage.gov archive and the studies below, all read on 3 October 2026.

EdCitation never writes any part of anyone's work, so every plain sentence you hand in is your own. It checks instead: Mechanics QA reads a finished paper for formatting and the slips a spell-checker lets through, and Find sources finds the research. The rules for writing plainly are in plain English at work; this guide is the history and the evidence.

What is the plain English movement?

The plain English movement, called plain language internationally, is the push since the 1940s to make public documents clear to their readers, first by measuring readability and later by testing with real users.

Schriver (2017) reviewed more than 100 publications on the US history and found three phases: a focus on readability from 1940 to 1970, a shift towards usability by the mid-1980s, and, by 2015, a new question about whether readers trust what they read.

How did the Plain English Campaign start?

The Plain English Campaign began in 1979, when its founder, Chrissie Maher, shredded official documents in Parliament Square, London, by the Campaign's own account (Plain English Campaign, n.d.-a).

Maher, born in 1938, could not read until her mid-teens, one Campaign page says (Plain English Campaign, n.d.-c); another says her late teens. She founded the Tuebrook Bugle, a community newspaper, in 1971 and Liverpool News, for adults with reading difficulties, in 1974. Then, as a member of the National Consumer Council, she opened the Form Market in Salford to help people fill in forms and claim benefits, and began asking why the forms were not clear in the first place (Plain English Campaign, n.d.-b).

The Parliament Square story, told two ways

We found no report of the protest from 1979 itself, so the details rest on the Campaign and later press. The Campaign says Maher shredded hundreds of documents, and that a constable told her demonstrations were banned by reading out a long sentence from the Metropolitan Police Act 1839, to which she replied that he meant they had to leave (Plain English Campaign, n.d.-b). A 1997 profile in Tes gives thousands of forms, a reading of the Riot Act and a different reply: "Does that gobbledygook mean we have to go?" (Tes Editorial, 1997). Treat the exact words as unconfirmed.

Crystal Marks, Golden Bulls and a Foot in Mouth

The Campaign launched the Crystal Mark, its seal of approval for clear documents, in 1990, and says it now appears on tens of thousands of them (Plain English Campaign, n.d.-a). For many years it also held annual awards: prizes for clear writing, Golden Bull awards for gobbledygook, and Foot in Mouth awards for baffling remarks by public figures (Plain English Campaign, n.d.-b).

The best-known Foot in Mouth went to Donald Rumsfeld, then US Secretary of Defense, in December 2003, for his "known knowns" and "unknown unknowns" (ABC News, 2003). The linguist Geoffrey Pullum (2003) disagreed, calling the remark impeccable "syntactically, semantically, logically, and rhetorically": an unfamiliar idea is not the same as unclear language.

How did plain language get into American law?

Through banks and states first, then presidents, after a post-war generation of critics inside government such as John O'Hayre of the Bureau of Land Management, whose Gobbledygook Has Gotta Go appeared in 1966 (Schriver, 2017).

Banks, states and a president, 1975 to 1981

In 1975 Citibank in New York introduced what Schriver (2017) calls the first plain-language promissory note for consumer bank transactions. New York then passed the first state plain language law for consumer contracts, which Schriver dates to 1977. As the New York Senate publishes it today, the statute requires residential leases and consumer agreements made after 1 November 1978 to use "words with common and every day meanings" (New York State Senate, n.d.).

On 23 March 1978, President Carter's Executive Order 12044 said regulations "shall be as simple and clear as possible", and the official approving a significant regulation was to determine that it was "written in plain English" (Carter, 1978). The order lasted under three years: President Reagan's Executive Order 12291 revoked it on 17 February 1981 (Reagan, 1981).

Clinton's memo and Gore's awards, 1998

The second federal push came on 1 June 1998, when President Clinton told agencies that "the Federal Government's writing must be in plain language": everyday words, "you" and other pronouns, the active voice and short sentences (Clinton, 1998).

Vice President Al Gore handed out No Gobbledygook Awards to federal staff, 22 of them between 1998 and 2000, and in August 1998 the Securities and Exchange Commission published A Plain English Handbook for disclosure documents (Schriver, 2017). Gore is credited with the line "Plain Language is a civil right" (Plain Language Action and Information Network, n.d.).

How did the Plain Writing Act of 2010 become law?

It took two Congresses. Bruce Braley, a Democratic congressman from Iowa, won a House vote of 376 to 1 for his Plain Language in Government Communications Act of 2007, but Senator Robert Bennett placed a hold on the Senate bill and it never reached a vote there, Schriver (2017) reports.

Braley introduced a new version on 10 February 2009 as H.R. 946, then titled the Plain Language Act of 2009 (Schriver, 2017). The House passed it 386 to 33 on 17 March 2010, the Senate passed an amended version by unanimous consent on 27 September, the House agreed 341 to 82 two days later, and President Obama signed it on 13 October 2010 (U.S. Congress, 2010).

The Senate's amendment changed the definition. Braley's text had defined plain writing as writing its audience "can readily understand and use"; the Senate dropped that test, Schriver (2017) notes. The Act as signed defines plain writing as "clear, concise, well-organized" and suited to the field and audience, excludes regulations, and rules out judicial review (Plain Writing Act of 2010). Plainlanguage.gov now redirects to Digital.gov's plain language guide series, which says the old site's content is archived on GitHub (U.S. General Services Administration, n.d.).

Which plain language laws exist, and when did they start?

The best known are the US Plain Writing Act of 2010, US state consumer contract laws starting with New York's, the UK's transparency rule for consumer terms and New Zealand's Plain Language Act 2022. Each milestone below is from the source we read:

The UK and New Zealand

In the sources we read, the UK has no counterpart to the US Act for government writing. The nearest law is section 68 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015: a trader's written consumer terms and notices must be transparent, and a notice is transparent if "expressed in plain and intelligible language" and legible. New Zealand's Plain Language Act 2022 covers public service agencies and Crown agents, requires each to appoint a plain language officer and report every year, and defines plain language in words close to the US Act's: "clear, concise, well-organised and appropriate to the intended audience" (Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission, 2023).

What does research on readability say?

Research says readability formulas are a rough screen, not a test, and that plain language helps readers without solving everything. The formulas' history is in our guide to spellcheck and the writing tools before AI, and the evidence on sentence length and jargon in our prose guide for clear writing.

Readability formulas disagree with each other

Zhou et al. (2017) ran passages from 12 SAE and ISO standards on vehicle driver interfaces through five well-known formulas, in four online tools and Microsoft Word 2013. The same formula typically scored a passage two grade levels apart from one tool to the next, because the tools counted hyphenated words, numbers, abbreviations and web addresses differently. Across the formulas, mean grades ran from 12.3 on the Automated Readability Index to 15.1 on the Gunning Fog Index.

A good score is not proof of understanding either. Stricker et al. (2020) compared the plain language summaries and scientific abstracts of 103 articles in two psychology journals on four indices, among them Flesch Reading Ease and the New Dale-Chall formula. The summaries were easier on every one, but the authors did not test whether non-experts took in more. Schriver (2017) concludes that usability testing, not a formula, is "the best benchmark" for plain language.

Do readers prefer plain language, and understand it better?

They prefer it, and they understand it somewhat better. Trudeau (2012) surveyed 376 people online in 2011, just over half of them clients of lawyers. Given 11 pairs of passages, one plain and one in traditional legal style, they chose the plain version about 80% of the time, and it won all 11. Preference rose with education, from 76.5% among those without a bachelor's degree to 86% among those with a law degree, and 54 of the 61 respondents with a law degree preferred "among other things" to "inter alia". The sample, as Trudeau says, held more advanced degrees than the population.

Understanding is harder to move. Masson and Waldron (1994) redrafted legal contracts in three stages: archaic and redundant terms out, then simpler words and sentences, then legal terms defined or replaced. Simpler words and sentence structure reliably raised comprehension, measured by paraphrasing and answering questions, but absolute comprehension stayed very low; the errors suggested readers also struggled with legal concepts that clashed with what they already believed. Plain wording helps; only testing with readers shows whether it was enough.

Where does EdCitation help when you write in plain English?

EdCitation helps with the checking; the plain English stays yours. It works from the publisher's record and looks every reference up instead of writing one.

Mechanics QA, for the slips plain writing still leaves

Mechanics QA gives a finished paper the first read a marker gives it, done by rule. It checks formatting, from font and margins to headings and the reference list, against the APA 7 student paper; finds comments, tracked changes, placeholders and template text left in the file; matches each citation to the list and looks each reference up in the publisher's record; flags figures that do not add up or disagree between sections; and catches the slips a spell-checker lets through. No model reads the paper, and each finding names the rule it broke and its fix. Whether each sentence is plain stays your judgement, which is where the research above puts it. Mechanics QA is part of Pro at $8 a month, and a free account runs three checks a month (pricing).

Find sources, Cite a source and Verify references

Find sources, free with no account, searches about 300 million published works by topic or by the claim a sentence needs to support. On 3 October 2026 we searched "plain language readability comprehension". It reported 11,131 results, and the first was "Scientific abstracts and plain language summaries in psychology: A comparison based on readability indices" (2020, PLoS ONE), marked open access and cited by 40: the Stricker study above. Cite a source builds its reference from the DOI in six styles, and Verify references checks a finished list and flags retracted papers.

Quick questions

What is the Plain English Campaign?

A British campaign against gobbledygook, jargon and misleading public information, launched by Chrissie Maher in 1979. It edits and trains, and awards its Crystal Mark to clear documents.

What is the Plain Writing Act of 2010?

A US law, signed on 13 October 2010, requiring federal executive agencies to use plain writing in documents about benefits, services, taxes and compliance. Regulations are excluded, and no court can review compliance.

What is a Golden Bull award?

The Plain English Campaign's award for gobbledygook, given for many years beside its Foot in Mouth award for baffling remarks by public figures.

Does plain language work?

Readers prefer it: about 80% chose the plain version in Trudeau's 2012 survey. Plain redrafting raises comprehension, but Masson and Waldron (1994) found it stayed low for complex legal ideas, so test with real readers.

Can EdCitation make my writing plainer?

The plain writing is yours: EdCitation never writes or rewrites a sentence. Mechanics QA, in Pro, checks formatting and the slips a spell-checker lets through, and Find sources finds the research.

References

• ABC News. (2003, December 2). Rumsfeld wins 'Foot in Mouth' award. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2003-12-02/rumsfeld-wins-foot-in-mouth-award/99000
• Carter, J. (1978, March 23). Executive Order 12044: Improving government regulations. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-12044-improving-government-regulations
• Clinton, W. J. (1998, June 1). Memorandum on plain language in government writing. In Weekly compilation of presidential documents (pp. 1010–1011). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/WCPD-1998-06-08/pdf/WCPD-1998-06-08-Pg1010.pdf
• Consumer Rights Act 2015, c. 15, s. 68 (2015). https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/68
• Masson, M. E. J., & Waldron, M. A. (1994). Comprehension of legal contracts by non-experts: Effectiveness of plain language redrafting. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 8(1), 67–85. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.2350080107
• New York State Senate. (n.d.). General Obligations Law § 5-702: Requirements for use of plain language in consumer transactions. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/5-702
• Plain English Campaign. (n.d.-a). About us. https://www.plainenglish.co.uk/about-us
• Plain English Campaign. (n.d.-b). Campaigning. https://www.plainenglish.co.uk/campaigning
• Plain English Campaign. (n.d.-c). Chrissie Maher OBE. https://www.plainenglish.co.uk/chrissie-maher-obe
• Plain Language Action and Information Network. (n.d.). History and timeline. PlainLanguage.gov archive, GitHub. https://github.com/GSA/plainlanguage.gov/blob/main/_pages/about/history/index.md
• 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
• Pullum, G. K. (2003, December 2). No foot in mouth. Language Log. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000182.html
• Reagan, R. (1981, February 17). Executive Order 12291: Federal regulation. National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12291.html
• Schriver, K. A. (2017). Plain language in the US gains momentum: 1940–2015. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 60(4), 343–383. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPC.2017.2765118
• Stricker, J., Chasiotis, A., Kerwer, M., & Günther, A. (2020). Scientific abstracts and plain language summaries in psychology: A comparison based on readability indices. PLOS ONE, 15(4), Article e0231160. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231160
• Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission. (2023, April 20). Plain Language Act 2022: Guidance for agencies. https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/guidance/plain-language-act-2022-guidance-for-agencies
• Tes Editorial. (1997, July 11). Plain but beautiful. Tes. https://www.tes.com/news/plain-beautiful
• Trudeau, C. R. (2012). The public speaks: An empirical study of legal communication. The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, 14, 121–152. https://www.lwionline.org/sites/default/files/2024-11/Trudeau%20The%20Public%20Speaks.pdf
• U.S. Congress. (2010). Bill status: H.R. 946, 111th Congress, Plain Writing Act of 2010 [XML]. govinfo. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLSTATUS-111hr946/xml/BILLSTATUS-111hr946.xml
• U.S. General Services Administration. (n.d.). Plain language guide series. Digital.gov. https://digital.gov/guides/plain-language
• Zhou, S., Jeong, H., & Green, P. A. (2017). How consistent are the best-known readability equations in estimating the readability of design standards? IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 60(1), 97–111. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPC.2016.2635720