March 6 Clear Language meeting summary

Hi, folks, below is the summary of yesterday's Clear Language meeting and a
list of upcoming meetings.


Also, apologies for the lack of minutes. I thought I could share out the
closed-caption transcript, but I did something wrong and my Zoom account
did not save the transcript. Next time, we'll stick with the usual plan of
enlisting a scribe.


March 6 Clear Language meeting summary


   - Attended: Julie, Jeanne, Becca, Jan, Santina, John K., Abbey
   - Doc we're working on: Clear Language working draft (2023)
   <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JKJ32DK_A82ahsQ_k0RVPc-ZYpX5uuKtuGOLdo2OqyY/edit?usp=sharing>
   - Common Words conditional test by language:
      - We built this out using the test we drafted for Clear Language’s
      TPAC 2022 presentation, on Slide 17
      <https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Tve0g7pRufB5iShWwstwrfGdDtbn8YdsHEyN7Coj1vU/edit#slide=id.g149ba793bb8_6_11>
      .
      - All present at the March 6 meeting agreed to exclude reading level
      from this because it is not a good measure of how easy text is to
      understand.
      - We also discussed setting an upper limit (such as the 10,000 most
      common words in English) to pass the Common Words test and establishing
      ranges for the pass/better/exemplary scoring levels.
      - After the meeting, Julie added a resource (that was included in our
      TPAC presentation) that can help build out word-frequency lists in many
      languages.
   - Plain-language assertion:
      - Jeanne asked us to develop an assertion that a plain-language
      review was conducted.
      - We will draft this assertion soon and mentioned to Jeanne that it
      will overlap with some Clear Language tests, like common words
and sentence
      structure.


*Upcoming Clear Language meetings*


   - Monday, March 13th, at 2pm ET (Rescheduling because of CSUN; I'll
   update the calendar invite as soon as we settle on a new day/time)
   - Thursday, March 23rd, at 11 am ET (during the regular COGA subgroup
   meeting time)
   - Wednesday, April 5th, at 1pm ET
   - Wednesday, April 12th, at 2pm ET


Thanks,

Julie

-- 

Julie Rawe

Associate Director, Editorial Strategy

E: jrawe@understood.org

Pronounced "raw" (like "uncooked")

She | her