The Plain English Guide

This guide is suitable for professional, study and general use. It explains how to set out and write better letters, memos, instructions, legal documents, and reports. Writers of business and other official documents are often accused of being obscure, long-winded, and prone to jargon. This guide aims to show users how to write plain English. It offers 20 easy-to-follow guidelines covering plain words, sentence length, active and passive verbs, punctuation, planning and good organization of points. Along the way, it controversially explodes such writing myths as "Never start a sentence with but" and "Never split your infinitives".