Source: https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/write/plain-language/readable-regulations.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 23:57:41+00:00

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Readable regulations help the public find requirements quickly and understand them easily. They increase compliance, strengthen enforcement, and decrease mistakes, frustration, phone calls, appeals, and distrust of government. Everyone gains.
Think about using these techniques when you revise subparts or larger units of your regulations. This may cause some temporary stylistic inconsistency. However, over time, you will improve entire regulations making them easier to find, understand, and use.
The Federal Plain Langauge Guidelines contain more techniques and examples that can improve your overall writing.
Headings for sections and higher divisions appear in the table of contents, your reader's road map. Put key topics there, not in paragraphs. Aim the content at readers new to your regulation. You will be more likely to spell things out. When the Federal Communications Commission revised its regulation on citizens band radios, it added some recommended practices to the required ones and eliminated an entire handbook that had explained the earlier, spare regulation.
What do your readers need to know first, second, third, and so on? In the regulation on loans, sections might flow in many ways: from major matters to minor ones, from usual practices to rare or temporary ones, and (the most common way) from first step to last.
Can your reader move easily from one section to the next? Take these consecutive section headings: "Application," "Applicable criminal histories," and "Employment application." If you were a day-care operator who had to read those headings, could you tell them apart?
When you revise a regulation, go through it to strike outdated requirements and insert new ones. Your computer's redline function will help you keep track of changes. But once a regulation has undergone many piecemeal changes, the best revisions start with a blank computer screen. Rethink the content and structure with a reader's convenience in mind.
Few readers study a regulation from beginning to end; most want to go right to whatever interests them. Like drivers on unfamiliar roads, they need lots of signs.
You will give readers those signs by using lots of sections. Section headings offer the double advantage of appearing in both the text and the table of contents. Headings are not required for paragraphs, but they are a good idea.
For "Uses," try "Where you may use an off-highway vehicle."
For "Scope," try "What does this regulation cover?"
§ 3172.1 May I apply for a spacing unit?
§ 101.1. What special definitions apply to this part?
Different levels of paragraphs clarify relative importance, allow pinpoint citations, and simplify revisions all while taking up little or no extra space. They are useful for identifying everything from steps and items to conditions and exceptions.
§ 211.14 Who is liable?
(b) An operator is liable for... § 211.14 How is an owner liable?
§ 211.15 How is an operator liable?
Flow charts, with their boxes and branches, clarify complex processes. Whether or not one appears in your regulation you should imagine a flow chart for your regulation to make sure you understand how all the parts fit the whole.
Look for opportunities to write directly to "you," whoever must comply. The direct approach turns vague, passive statements of fact into pointed directions: "The plan must be followed [by whom?]" becomes "You must follow the plan" or "Follow the plan." With a fix on who is responsible, "you" will come naturally.
Write to one reader. Though you may regulate many thousands of people, only one of them reads your writing at any one time.
Use a definitions section. "You means a licensee."
Use a section heading. "As a contracting officer, may I...?"
Answer a section heading. "Who must follow this regulation? This regulation tells you, a lending institution, how to..."
§ 211.13 Who is liable for royalties due on a lease?
"You" is easiest to use in simple procedures and hardest when different readers share overlapping duties. Still, the word so focuses thinking and writing that it is among your most powerful tools.
The past participle of a main verb (most end in -ed).
Put a doer before the verb. For "An arrangement must be established," try "You must establish an arrangement." For "After the forms are received by the control staff, they are copied," try "After the control staff receives the forms, the control staff copies them."
Change the verb. For "If you press Control-N, you are shown a blank screen," try "...you see a blank screen" or "...the computer shows you a blank screen.."
Three techniques will help you write sentences that are clear in a single reading.
Second, put two or more complicated qualifications after the main clause. In the next example, the original sentence forces readers to hold too much in their minds before they reach the late main clause. The revision puts the main clause first (and, for a further improvement, it should list the two conditions vertically).
Third, keep subjects and verbs together and compound verbs together. In the next example, the original sentence interrupts the compound verb "may take." The interruption belongs elsewhere but not right after "The Director," where it would separate the subject and verb.
Further improvements include shrinking "in accordance with the procedures set forth in" to "under" and "in the course of" to "during."

References: § 3172

§ 101

§ 211
 § 211

§ 211

§ 211