Will you join our prestigious list of winners? | Photo of 2018 Award winners by Rebecca McMillan Photography

We asked past Award winners what appealed to them about entering the Plain English Awards, what advice or feedback they got from the judges, and what tips they’d give to anyone entering this year.

We hope you find these tips useful!

We asked our winners:

• why entering the Awards appealed to them
• what features of their entry the judges appreciated the most
• what they would do differently if they entered the 2021 Awards
• what their top piece of advice was for this year’s entrants.

Why entering the Awards appealed to our past winners

• ‘We knew what we were doing was important and wanted to share that with other people who care about plain English.’ (Plain English Champion winner)
• ‘I met someone years before who’d entered and won an award, so for me it was a development goal to work towards. I wanted to become good enough, consistent enough and confident enough in what I do to deserve one of these awards. I also wanted to connect with people in similar roles to me and support and celebrate their achievements too.’ (Plain English Champion, Best Plain English Sentence Transformation winner)
• ‘I believe plain English is so important in society and I wanted to be a part of making change. I loved the challenge of making a technical document plain!’ (Best Plain English Document — private sector winner)
• ‘I think good technical communication deserves to be celebrated, and I love a challenge! Plus I thought that if I won, the award would look good on my desk and in my CV.’ (Best Plain English Technical Communicator winner)

The judges appreciated easy-to-read letters with a personal tone and clear design

The judges appreciated documents that were well structured and elegantly designed. They appreciated that a team effort often plays a part in improving communication. The judges also felt enthusiasm for plain English coming across in personal tone and were impressed by the entrants’ dedication to using both plain English and smart design to make their organisation’s communications clearer.

Judges also liked seeing great layout, and technical language explained clearly.

One winner said that the most powerful thing they did was include quotes from people on a benefit. ‘We had people thanking us for sending them easy to read and kind letters.’

Our winners said they could always find room for improvement

One said, ‘I’d take everything I’ve learnt since I last entered, and talk about that — the challenges, the new thinking, the lessons learned, the new responsibilities, and the successes.’

‘I would include more about the difference it made to people’, said another.

One entrant entered an instruction manual that was designed for the web, including drop-boxes that opened on click. As this was not a public-facing website, the entrant had to provide the content in Word, which wasn’t ideal. They said that in future they’d choose examples that they could provide in a more accessible format.

Our winners shared their top pieces of advice for someone entering the Awards

• ‘You have to really care about your entry and what you worked on.’
• ‘Structure your supporting evidence well, to make the value you’ve added to plain communication really clear and convincing for the judges.’
• ‘Design is as important as the plain English words used. Your layout is an integral part of plain English, as are any design features used.’
• ‘It sounds obvious, but make sure you read “What you need to know” for the category, and make sure you provide judges with everything they are looking for.’

Some more words of wisdom from our winners

Our winners agreed that ‘plain English is underrated, yet crucially important’. They also felt it was fantastic to be part of the plain English movement.

A plain English document can win your business customers, save readers valuable time, improve your organisation’s credibility, and even save lives.

The Awards recognise that it’s not always easy to keep things simple — our project was really daunting — but it’s so important.

The Awards have a really fantastic celebratory vibe. Even if you don’t win, it’s a great achievement to be a finalist and support other finalists, and to be part of an important movement in New Zealand.

Thanks to all our past winners for their valuable advice! We hope all our entrants get as much out of entering the Awards process as valuable as our past winners have!

Read Trophy Tips: In the words of our judges

Read about past award winners

How to enter the 2021 Plain English Awards