January 19, 2011
Clear and simple: Free web tutorial on plain writing
Take a web tutorial in plain writing for researchers
Nature magazine’s free online course in communicating science
Obtaining truly informed consent is questionable when most forms and research materials exceed recommended readability standards.
Many are written at college level, while the average American adult reads at the 8th-grade level.
To help address this problem, the University of Washingtons Institute for Translational Health Sciences (ITHS) and Group Health Research Institute have jointly produced a web course in using plain language for health research: http://prism.grouphealthresearch.org
The ITHS was established through the federal Clinical and Translational Science Awards. Creation of the online training was supported in part by the ITHS grant, funded by the National Institutes of Healths National Center for Research Resources.
Jessica Ridpath, Group Health Research Institute research communications coordinator, presented this online resource at the Health Literacy Annual Research Conference this fall .
The Plain Writing Act of 2010 requires that government documents be understandable, in “writing that is clear, concise, well-organized, and follows other best practices appropriate to the subject or field and intended audience.”
Like the Plain Writing Act, the web course is based on the principles of plain language: a communication style centered on the audience’s needs, abilities, and levels of literacy and numeracy. The online training will broaden the reach of the Program for Readability in Science and Medicine, or PRISM.
The web tutorial is freely available to anyone. Researchers can see how to use plain language through the courses many concrete examples.
