Time to read: 10 minutes (Yes! Please spend 10 minutes!)
Good morning! Are you working on the narrative sections of your FY 2024 Program Review pages due the end of April? If so, you are already making the important decisions that underly your Program Review narrative; you are already working to tell a clear and compelling story to the Board and the public; you are already considering the long-term planning component we’re incorporating this year.
While you are doing all of that, don’t forget: this work will only be effective if our audiences understand our words.
Spend 10 minutes on this Tip and at the plainlanguage.gov website. You will find something that you can improve in your narratives. Your upfront 10-minute investment will:
Save you, your staff, and the DFB team hours of review and edit cycles, and more importantly,
Make the difference between the Program Review sitting on the shelf gathering dust and it being a useful, informative, and living tool.
The Program Review project team—with leadership support—took an important step to make the document more reader friendly. We changed three of the headings in the Activity narratives and added two new ones. If you joined the Workshops for People Who Plan on February 24th, you learned about these improved headings. If you weren’t able to join the Workshop, don’t worry—the PDF of the presentation is in the Pathway to Stabilization Toolkit. On page seven, you’ll see a crosswalk between the old and the new. Also, the DFB team will help if you have any questions.
Visit plainlanguage.gov. It’s a great resource, reference, and reminder of who you write for. There’s a ton of information there that will help in your writing for the public. For the Program Review itself, we draw your attention to the section called “Choose your words carefully” for seven specific recommendations. When you poke around those sections, you’ll find straightforward examples that may resonate with you in your work.
Ask yourself: can you spot the jargon and confusing language in your writing? It’s hard—many of us have been in our fields for so long that we forgot we didn’t know these terms and acronyms at one point. If you can’t spot it anymore, find a fresh reader. Find someone who is not in your field, doesn’t know what you’re writing about, and can pick it up, read it, and tell you where your writing is unclear or confusing. Again, spending this time up front will save everyone time later, and it will make the time you are spending far more meaningful.
