Confusion costs readers and sends them in the wrong direction | Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Have you spotted a piece of bad communication in the wild recently? Do you know of a particularly painful sentence or paragraph that needs taming? Although entries are officially closed for the 2021 Awards, we’re still keen to talk about one of the categories that’s a fan favourite — the Worst Brainstrain Communication.

We’ll be highlighting some brainstraining sentences during the Awards ceremony

Send us a gnarly sentence or two that you’ve had a close encounter with. We’ll be doing a few callouts for the Brainstrain category during the 2021 Awards ceremony on Thursday, 14 October. So we’re keen to get as many sentences as we can before next Thursday.

Our callouts on the day won’t be official winners of the infamous Brainstrain trophy bin filled with sour worm lollies from previous Awards ceremonies.

But rest assured that we’re keen to share your examples so that we can continue to highlight where work still needs to be done in the interests of clear communication.

The traditional Brainstrain trophy is a bin containing sour worm lollies | Photo by Bill Craighead on Unsplash

Why it’s good to point out the bad

In good humour, the Brainstrain award puts a confusing document or webpage under the spotlight. And we hope that the organisations responsible will rewrite them in beautifully plain English.

Previous winners of the Brainstrain have seen the light and taken the callout on the chin. They’ve worked on their documents and improved them, sometimes even turning up as winners in the Best Plain English Turnaround Award in subsequent years.

Send us any confusing sentences you’ve found before Thursday, 14 October by entering them in Submittable. (You’ll need to log in to your Submittable account or set up an account.)

Send us your Brainstrain sentences

The fan-favourite Brainstrain trophy was last awarded in 2018 | Photo by Rebecca McMillan Photography

Join us to celebrate the 2021 Plain English Awards

We’ll be celebrating all our finalists and winners of the 2021 Plain English Awards on Thursday, 14 October. So come along and enjoy the online ceremony — it’s a free event!

Register to attend the 2021 Awards ceremony