Author Archives: Sally McBeth

Legal language

Kimble, Joseph. Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please. The Case for Plain Language in Business, Government, and Law. Carolina Academic Press, 2012. Order from: http://tinyurl.com/8oq3dno

Le langage clair: Un outil indispensable à l’avocat, an introduction to clear language for the legal profession in Quebec. Download :

http://www.barreau.qc.ca/avocats/praticien/langage-clair/index.html

Mowat, Christine. A Plain Language Handbook for Legal Writers. Toronto: Carswell, 1999. (A new edition is in preparation and scheduled for publication in 2015.)

Meier, Nicholas and R.J. Adams. Plain English for Cops. Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 1999.

legalglossary.ca

A multilingual database of legal terms, sponsored by the Law Foundation of British Columbia.

Health Literacy

Canadian Public Health Association. A Directory of Plain Language Health Resources. Ottawa: CPHA, 2000

Doak, Cecilia C., Leonard G. Doak, and Jane H. Root. Teaching Patients With Low Literacy Skills. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Co., 1996.

hrsa.gov/healthliteracy/training.htm

Free online training in health literacy from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

http://www.healthliteracyoutloud.com/

Listen to health literacy advocate Helen Osborne’s podcast interviews with remarkable people working in this field.

health.gov/communication/literacy

A wealth of health literacy information on the US Department of Health and Human Services site, sponsored by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

www.cdc.gov/ccindex/

An online questionnaire from the Centres for Disease Control helps you to evaluate the readability of your health communications.

Forms design

alistapart.com/articles/sensibleforms

A great set of guidelines for designing online forms.

Barnett, Robert. Forms for People: Designing forms that people can use. Canberra: Robert Barnett and Associates Pty Ltd., 2005.

Jarrett, Carolyn and Gerry Gaffney. Forms that Work: Designing web forms for usability. New York: Morgan Kaufmann, 2009.

Johnston, Carol, Ginny Critcher, and Ellis Pratt, How to Write Instructions. Cherryleaf, 2011.

Business writing

Bailey, Edward P. Plain English at Work. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Booher, Dianna. E-Writing. New York: Pocket Books, 2001

Brohaugh, William. Write Tight: How to Keep your Prose Sharp, Focused and Concise. Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2002.

Grotsky, Rose. Get to the Point: A strategy for writing clearly at work. Toronto: Praxis Adult Training and Skills Development, 1998.

James, Neil. Writing at Work: How to write clearly, effectively and professionally. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2007.

Lutz, William. The New Doublespeak: Why No One Knows What Anyone’s Saying Anymore. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.