full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alan Siegel: Let's simplify legal jargon!

Unscramble the Blue Letters


When you put it in plain English, you almost force the institution to give the people a way, a default out of that, and not put themselves at risk. Plain elinsgh is about changing the content. And one of the things I'm most puord of is this agreement for IBM. It's a grid, it's a caenladr. At such and such a date, IBM has responsibilities, you have responsibilities. Received very favorably by business.

And there is some good news to report tdoay. Each year, one in 10 taarepyxs receives a nictoe from the IRS. There are 200 million letters that go out. Running through this tiyapcl letter that they had, I ran it through my simplicity lab, it's pretty unintelligible. All the parts of the document in red are not intelligible. We loeokd at doing over 1,000 letters that cover 70 prencet of their transactions in plain English. They have been tested in the laboratory. When I run it through my lab, this heat-mapping shows everything is intelligible. And the IRS has introduced the program.

Open Cloze


When you put it in plain English, you almost force the institution to give the people a way, a default out of that, and not put themselves at risk. Plain _______ is about changing the content. And one of the things I'm most _____ of is this agreement for IBM. It's a grid, it's a ________. At such and such a date, IBM has responsibilities, you have responsibilities. Received very favorably by business.

And there is some good news to report _____. Each year, one in 10 _________ receives a ______ from the IRS. There are 200 million letters that go out. Running through this _______ letter that they had, I ran it through my simplicity lab, it's pretty unintelligible. All the parts of the document in red are not intelligible. We ______ at doing over 1,000 letters that cover 70 _______ of their transactions in plain English. They have been tested in the laboratory. When I run it through my lab, this heat-mapping shows everything is intelligible. And the IRS has introduced the program.

Solution


  1. taxpayers
  2. percent
  3. looked
  4. calendar
  5. today
  6. english
  7. notice
  8. proud
  9. typical

Original Text


When you put it in plain English, you almost force the institution to give the people a way, a default out of that, and not put themselves at risk. Plain English is about changing the content. And one of the things I'm most proud of is this agreement for IBM. It's a grid, it's a calendar. At such and such a date, IBM has responsibilities, you have responsibilities. Received very favorably by business.

And there is some good news to report today. Each year, one in 10 taxpayers receives a notice from the IRS. There are 200 million letters that go out. Running through this typical letter that they had, I ran it through my simplicity lab, it's pretty unintelligible. All the parts of the document in red are not intelligible. We looked at doing over 1,000 letters that cover 70 percent of their transactions in plain English. They have been tested in the laboratory. When I run it through my lab, this heat-mapping shows everything is intelligible. And the IRS has introduced the program.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
plain english 4
consumer credit 2
national priority 2


Important Words


  1. agreement
  2. business
  3. calendar
  4. changing
  5. content
  6. cover
  7. date
  8. default
  9. document
  10. english
  11. favorably
  12. force
  13. give
  14. good
  15. grid
  16. ibm
  17. institution
  18. intelligible
  19. introduced
  20. irs
  21. lab
  22. laboratory
  23. letter
  24. letters
  25. looked
  26. million
  27. news
  28. notice
  29. parts
  30. people
  31. percent
  32. plain
  33. pretty
  34. program
  35. proud
  36. put
  37. ran
  38. received
  39. receives
  40. red
  41. report
  42. responsibilities
  43. risk
  44. run
  45. running
  46. shows
  47. simplicity
  48. taxpayers
  49. tested
  50. today
  51. transactions
  52. typical
  53. unintelligible
  54. year