Introducing... "civic clarity"!
How to connect with your readers
It’s clear that all planners write, and most of us write a lot.
And yet, we aren’t trained on how to prepare the documents we work with and write every day, until we join the workforce (more on that some other time). We usually have to pick it up on the go. That’s fine for those of us with a flair for writing (although even those lucky souls have to learn to adapt to their workplace). For most planners, it means a lot of guessing, hoping, and frustration.
Writing on the job is different than writing essays in school. Of course, you developed your writing style during years of study, adopting a certain lexicon, and defending your ideas. But this is a different style of writing than we need on the job. Once at work, we have to figure it out, often without clear guidelines or a strong sense of who we’re writing for. It explains, in part, why planners struggle to be understood, and continue to prepare documents that tend to be … let’s say “opaque”, that are filled with passive, indirect language – instead of directly and openly telling the reader what we’re doing or recommending.
Unlike with your essays, your readers need to be able to quickly and easily understand your thinking and recommendations so they can do something with it. They want to know they can rely on you to give them what they need to do that, and that you won’t be wasting their time. This involves building trust, and to do that, you need to write with clarity – and for planners, that means civic clarity.
What’s "civic clarity?”
Civic clarity is a way of writing about your project (whether it’s a proposal, a program, a policy, or something else) that helps your reader:
find what they need,
understand what they find, and
use it or act on it… after reading your document just once (imagine that!).
Civic clarity builds on “plain language” principles. It’s writing that planners do in the very unique, civic environments that we work in (whatever sector or field that is). In Canada, plain language has been slow to grow – mostly undertaken by dedicated staff toiling away on their own. More recently, Plain Canada Clair has been growing a community of practitioners in this country – and their timing is perfect [*full disclosure, I’ve started volunteering with this lovely team of brilliant people].
The good news stories just keep coming. Just this week, the City of Winnipeg announced a new plain language policy for all of its public-oriented communications. No more “community facilities”! Instead, they’ll be called what they are, specifically: “soccer fields”, “parks”, “swimming pools”. However, providing civic clarity goes beyond consciously changing the language you choose.
How do you “do” civic clarity? You have to
identify your reader and give them what they need or want,
be clear about the purpose of your document, and
structure and organize the content in a way that helps the main reader understand you.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote here about the importance of making time to pinpoint who your audience is, and writing for them (not just showing off all the work you did or what you know). This is a crucial first step in anything you write, from an email to a long-range plan involving many different authors. This could be for anyone, like a decision maker, a project partner, “the general public” or someone else. In future posts I’ll talk more about focusing on your purpose and organizing content to support civic clarity.
Civic clarity doesn’t apply only when writing for the public.
Author and instructor Roy Peter Clark proposes “civic clarity” as an antidote to misinformation and confusion in news media. He describes it as “an ethical code to tell the truth, to tell it in a way people can understand it, and to tell it well.”
I think his definition applies neatly to city building professions – particularly planning, where our work is inherently tied to the public interest. Planning has an impact on the processes and outcomes of decisions that we all have to live with over the long term. The public expects, and has a right, to be included. As planners, we need to do more than strive for technically accurate solutions – we have to ensure that we build understanding, and we can do this by writing with clarity. Together we’re going to uncover the tools you have and the techniques you can use to do this.
Clark’s latest book, Tell It Like It Is, offers a useful list of the most important questions to ask yourself when you’re writing about your projects.
What do our documents look like through a civic clarity lens?
First of all, I apologize for the “lens” analogy! I wouldn’t use this with anyone but my planning friends and colleagues!
When you apply a civic clarity lens, you start to see how removed our writing is from what our readers need and can understand. We hesitate to stray from the official script and traditional ways of writing about our planning projects.
Consider this: It’s long been established (see Daniel Oppenheimer, 2005) that when you write with clarity, your reader thinks you’re smarter than if you use difficult language and make them work to understand you! So why not go for it?
Take a look at this example (below). This is pretty standard fare for local government websites. It sounds great on the surface, but dig a little. What is the municipality actually committing to? Put yourself in the position of a community member who’s not familiar with this initiative. What would they think it’s about?
Apply the lens! Ask yourself:
Who is the main reader meant to be?
What will they understand by reading this?
Why is the City sharing this? What do they want the reader to understand and do with this information?
Here’s what I see: Wordiness, jargon, and incomplete ideas. It raised a lot of questions for me when I tried to translate each bullet point into something more direct and clear, like:
Which of these initiatives will be regulated? (All of them?)
What is the City advocating for, exactly, and to whom? (+“advocate” is a loaded word we don’t usually expect to hear from governments!)
What will the City be facilitating? Who will be involved? What kind of transformation? (How can I take part?)
What is carbon accountability?
What is local renewable energy? (Neighbourhood level?)
Will they City track the performance of all buildings in the city, or do they mean only City-owned buildings? (It’s unclear.)
How will this plan increase access to walking? (I’m sure they mean better pedestrian connectivity and expanding or maintaining pathways/sidewalks – so why not say so?)
What do they mean by “increase” local renewable energy? Through investment? At what scale?
Ok, this is not the response you want from people who are reading your policies and plans. You want them to find what they need, get it, and be able to do something with that knowledge, at a glance (or they just won’t read it – or like me, get distracted by what’s not been said). I came away from reading this with more questions than answers – and if I had that reaction, I’m sure many others do, too.
I tried to rewrite it with civic clarity in mind… but I had too many questions.
What did I do here, with my attempt to rewrite this?
I started by shrinking down the preamble and getting rid of words (like “regulate”) that aren’t explicitly explained by the text that follows.
I numbered the items so I don’t have to take up space telling the reader there are five items.
I replaced complex words with simpler words that mean the same thing (e.g., “speed up” instead of “accelerate”).
I noted the jargon with quotation marks (these could be defined in an endnote).
I also noted where more information is needed – sometimes answering “why”, using the opportunity to educate the reader. Normally I’d ask the client to clarify what the intent is. In this case, I had to guess. What stands out? All the incomplete ideas!
So what’s my point?
When you apply a civic clarity lens, it becomes clear that some of the ideas haven’t been thought through (or at least not communicated), that the authors talked to each other a lot, and that a city councillor, or staff, or member of the public will have trouble understanding what they are meant to DO.
Remember:
All of your readers have short attention spans.
Only half of Canadian adults have reached a high school level of literacy.
Not everyone is immersed in the climate change movement. They don’t know what you know: explain your assumptions and share what you know if you want them support and even express enthusiasm for your plans.
If you’re posting something on a website that the public reads, take the time to translate it into plain language. Provide civic clarity! It takes a bit of time, it may open up a can of worms on the project team, it may feel risky, but it’s usually worth it in terms of aggravation and time saved.
To be totally fair, this example is taken out of a broader context – a complete website dedicated to the climate resiliency projects that are planned or are being undertaken. But if you review it with a civic clarity lens, you start to see how confusing and incomplete the information is. You can see it’s not written for the reader, but for the well-meaning authors to be able to say they’re doing something. This was probably not the intent – but the impact is that people will not be able to understand or act on this initiative – one that clearly took months to develop. That’s a missed opportunity to make a difference.
The most important tip? Write for your audience. Make it easy for them to find, understand, and act on your advice.
As planners, we have a special role in shaping our communities. You’ve trained to be a planner, but you need to think like a writer when you’re preparing your memos, reports, and other planning documents. Even the most technical document can be written with civic clarity in mind: clear and effective, from your reader’s perspective.
Questions for members:
Should I hit the beach or do a city tour first, on my vacation (Kidding! I’ll get to do both! See the note below).
Does the concept of “civic clarity” resonate with you? How so? Or not so?
Do you have a story to share, perhaps an experience of writing something like my example above, and trying to make some changes? What went well? What was a disaster?
NOTE: I’ll be on vacation for 2 weeks, starting today. You’ll still receive weekly posts, but it will probably take me a bit longer to respond to comments.
Talk amongst yourselves – and I’ll weigh in after July 19th.
This reminds me – if you’d like to be a guest writer, let’s talk!