By consistently practicing language in an intentional way, we can provide content that supports users' needs and improve their experience on our site.
Our goal is to help you create consistent, clear, and customer-centered content, using plain language.
1. Use short sentences: Try to limit each sentence to one subject and verb when possible.
2. Use simple words and terms that are familiar to our primary audience: Veterans and their families.
3. Use active voice: An action should always be connected to a subject. If there’s no subject taking responsibility for the verb, it’s likely passive voice.
4. Define complex terms: if you must use them. Add a plain language definition in parentheses immediately following the term or in a separate sentence.
5. Use pronouns to speak to our audience in a personable and conversational voice.
6. Use contractions (“don’t” instead of “do not”) to communicate with our audience in a conversational way.
7. Don’t use jargon. This includes bureaucratic and legal language as well as unnecessary acronyms and initialisms.
8. Don’t use idioms. These can be confusing or not understandable, especially for someone whose first language isn’t English.