General Services Administration 

Plain Writing Act Compliance Report 

April 10, 2012 

I.	 Senior Agency Official for Plain Writing: 

a.	 Name of Senior Agency Official responsible for Plain Writing 

Susan Brita, Deputy Administrator 

b.	 Names of Plain Language coordinators within the agency 

Katherine Spivey, Plain Language Launcher, katherine.spivey@gsa.gov and 

plainlanguage@gsa.gov 

II. Explain what specific types of agency communications have you released by making 

them available in a format that is consistent with the Plain Writing guidelines. 

Type of communications of document or 

posting. List how this is made available to 

the public 

Who is the intended user and approximate 

number of potential users 

What has changed by using 

Plain Writing 

Ordering guide – posted on 

website 

Federal contracting officers Shorter paragraphs, more 

pronouns, clearer 

instructions 

Web pages on GSA.gov 2 million hits/month Shorter paragraphs, more 

pronouns, fewer acronyms 

Style guide revised to 

include plain language 

Web team for GSA.gov Allowed pronoun use on 

gsa.gov 

III.Inform agency staff of Plain Writing Act’s requirements: 

a. Information on the Act is posted on the agency intranet with shortcut. 

http://insite.gsa.gov/plainlanguage (7/13/2011) 

plainlanguage@gsa.gov (7/28/2011) 

b.	 Published an article on the Act and its requirements in the internal agency news 

bulletin 
Created GSA Wiki (7/18/2011) 

c. Posters, signs, etc 

Updated howto.gov’s plain language pages (8/4/2011) 

Tabletop placards and posters distributed to DC offices (10/7/2011) 

Filmed Leadership in a Minute video (10/11/2011) 

Wrote blog for Social Media Center (10/11/2011) 

Content for lobby video monitor (10/24/2011) 

Started Chatter group (1/3/2012) 

Interview with Federal Computer Week (3/10/2012) 

IV. Training 

a. Agency provided the following trainings: 

Type of Training Number of employees trained Date 

In-house training – live FAS Portal Team 8/3/2011

(instructor trained by (50) 8/4/2011

Plain Language Action 

and Information FAS Comms Team 

Network) (42) 

Willow Wood (27) 8/31/2011 

Noma (22) 9/9/2011 

Noma/web writing 

(17) 

9/27/2011 

Noma, basics (12) 10/18/2011 

Performance 

Improvement 

Council (part of 

Office of 

Governmental 

Policy) (11) 

10/31/2011 

18th & F (7) (12/1/2011) 
Noma/web writing 

(8) 

12/9/2011 

Noma class (basic) 

(9) 

1/20/2012 

Workshop ( team 

class – 7) 

1/31/2012 

ROB basics class (18) 2/16/2012 

Webinars WMU webinar 

(382 attendees) 

9/1/2011 

WMU webinar web 

writing 

 (364 attendees) 

9/28/2011 

WMU webinar 

(policy and 

regulations) (?) 

10/21/2011 

Online training Published live 

Dec 2011 (10) 

Jan 2012 (45) 

Feb 2012 (14) 

March 2012 (14) 

12/23/2011 

Brownbags WW (26) 6/21/2011 

CC (10) 6/28/2011 

OCSIT (10) 8/2/2011 

Noma (3) 10/4/2011 

Noma (2) 12/6/2011 
 

Plainathon (6) 

Noma (12) 

12/7/2011 

1/10/2012 

Briefing Schedules team (2) 8/30/2011 

Senior Mgmt Team 

(25) 

9/19/2011 

Regional Public 

Affairs Officers (15) 

9/21/2011 

Office of Civil Rights 

team (4) 

10/25/2011 

Chief Acquisition 

Officer team (30) 

11/1/2011 

Briefed 

GSA/FAS/ITS/QTAB 

(26) 

11/9/2011 

V. Ongoing compliance/ sustaining change 

a. Name of agency contact for compliance issues: Susan Brita 

VI. Agency’s plain writing website 

a. Website address: http://www.gsa.gov/plainlanguage 
VII.	 Customer Satisfaction Evaluation after Experiencing Plain Writing 

Communications 

1.	 In July 2011, we created and posted an email address, plainlanguage@gsa.gov, 

published on our plain language page, www.gsa.gov/plainlanguage. No one has 

emailed us asking for clarification of any GSA.gov page. 

2.	 We published a feedback tool on GSA.gov’s top 20 pages that asked “Was this 

page clear?” and provided space for comments. We fed the votes and comments 

into a Google doc, which we shared with the top 20 pages’ owners. They are 

reviewing the comments and revising the pages in response to the comments. 

Many of the comments cover usability issues, not plain language, but we are 

planning to expand the feedback tool to other GSA.gov pages.