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CHRISTOPHER BALMFORD: "There's not a language where the people like their sentences to be really long. There's not a language where people like writers to use words that they don't understand. These things are intuitive, cross-cultural."

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: One problem is that some common words may not mean the same thing to the general public as they do to a lawyer. Mr. Balmford says a big part of writing clearly is considering who you are writing for.

CHRISTOPHER BALMFORD: "We need to make sure we use words that put the right pictures in people's minds. And too often traditional legal drafting uses words that won't put the right pictures in people's minds that create these miscues."

JUNE SIMMS: Take the word "instruments." For most people, the word brings to mind pianos, guitars and drums. But not for lawyers.

CHRISTOPHER BALMFORD: "If you say it to lawyers, they think about mortgages, and deeds and debenchers because those documents are what's known as legal instruments."

The process of adopting plain language practices is not always easy for an organization, or an individual.

CHRISTOPHER BALMFORD: "It's easy to write the way you've always written, so making the change is hard. It's probably harder to write in plain language because you need to think deeper and harder about what you're saying."

Christopher Balmford says resistance often comes from lawyers who are concerned that changes in their writing could change the meaning of their documents. But he says more lawyers are moving in the right direction in several countries including Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: So imagine you have a document that you want to rewrite using plain language. Where is the best place to begin?

CHISTOPHER BALMFORD: "The very best place to start, and it's the best place to end as well, is to find out what current users of the document think."

This is known as document testing or usability testing, and you can learn more about this process on the Internet. You can also find other resources online and in books to learn about writing in plain language.

In English, for example, using the active voice can make a sentence clearer than using the passive voice. The website plainlanguage.gov gives some examples. Here is a sentence in passive voice: "The lake was polluted by the company." Now here it is in active voice: "The company polluted the lake." Another example: "New regulations were proposed" is passive voice. You can make that into active voice by simply writing: "We proposed new regulations."

Now what about this next sentence -- is it active voice or passive voice? Here it is: "The following information must be included in the application for it to be considered complete." That was passive voice. Here it is rewritten into active voice: "You must include the following information in your application."

Mr. Balmford says using more informative headings, graphics and images can also help make a document easier to understand.

JUNE SIMMS: Annetta Cheek at the Center for Plain Language helped get the Plain Writing Act passed in twenty-ten. She says everyone shares in the responsibility for the clarity of the language they get from their government and businesses.

ANNETTA CHEEK: "Don't just accept bad communication. Complain about it. S