Plain Language Awards

Celebrate the stories of our clearest business communicators

Blog


The amusingly named Brainstrain Award has a serious purpose: to effect change for good | Photo by Canstock


Here’s your chance to dob in a bad document and inspire better with the Brainstrain option of the People’s Choice Award!

When we’re forced to wrestle with a hard-to-read document, we grumble quietly or even complain loudly. It could be a form we need to complete, a contract or financial agreement we have to sign, or other vital information we need. If they’re not clearly written or presented, all can inspire a range of negative reactions!

Inaccessible information has serious effects

We often joke about dense, unhelpful, or poorly worded documents. We label them gobbledygook or jargon and then forget about them. But for many people, inaccessible information has more serious consequences. Barriers to understanding create disadvantage, mistakes, and stress. Lives are affected and the cost can be high.

So here’s your chance to put a spotlight on a bad document and prevent more harm. Nominate it for the 2022 People’s Choice Brainstrain Award! This award goes to the document or webpage most notable for confusing or disadvantaging its target audience. Judges take into account the number of people likely to be affected and the degree of frustration or harm caused. Any member of the public can make a nomination.

Do your bit to create a fairer and more respectful society

Although the ‘prize’ is given in good humour at the ceremony, the award has a very serious purpose — to prompt change and create a fairer and more respectful society. Many winners have accepted the feedback graciously and gone on to rewrite the offending text. Thousands of people have been positively affected by those rewrites, so here’s a chance to play your part.

Take action now and be a catalyst for change. (Nominations are kept confidential — your name and details are not made available to the perpetrator!)

Nominate a Brainstrain

Find out more about the People’s Choice Awards


 

Posted In: 2022 Plain Language Awards, People's Choice awards

Tags: , , , , ,


Plain English Awards


Have you heard about the People’s Choice — Worst ‘Brainstrain’ Communication award? It’s the sibling of the People’s Choice — Best Communication award. Here are three things you need to know.

1. The Brainstrain award is the one award that organisations don’t really want to win. It reveals, in good humour, the document or website most notable for confusing and dumbfounding its target audience with obscurity and gobbledygook.

2. The ideal entry is a publicly available or widely used document or website that causes problems for many people.

3. By putting these confusing documents and web pages under the spotlight, we hope that the organisations responsible will rewrite them in beautifully plain English. And we’ve had some great turnaround stories prompted by this publicity.

So why not nominate a great or not-so-great document or website for one of the People’s Choice Awards.

Get involved with the People’s Choice Awards

 

Plain English Awards

Plain English Awards

Posted In: Communications

Tags: , , , ,