Legalese versus plain language

Article looking at developments in legal drafting, considering traditional approaches, reluctance to change, pitfalls of change and the benefits of plain language. Article by Professor Peter Butt (Associate Professor of Law at the university of Sydney and IALS Inns of Court Fellow 2001). Published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and its Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London

Comments on ``Lattice Formulation of the Standard Model'' by Creutz. et. al

The main construction of the paper in the title [hep-lat/9612017] is summarized using more standard particle physics language. Also, a flaw is pointed out and several objections to the more general thoughts expressed by Creutz et. al. are raised.Comment: 5 pages, plain Te

Changing with the Times: The Evolution of Plain Language in the Legal Sphere

As is well known, the Plain language movement has been influential in a number of areas of public life over the last few decades. Within the legal sphere it has raised general awareness concerning the need to make legal matters and legal documents more comprehensible and accessible to non-experts, particularly in today’s digitalized world where information is freely available to the general public. In this paper my aim is to provide an overview of the way the Plain language movement has evolved in the legal sphere since the 1970s. In particular, I will highlight the following points: (1) the reasons why the Plain language movement came into being; (2) the major successes of plain language in the legal sphere over the last 40 years; (3) the areas where legalese still predominates, and the reasons for the resistance to change; and (4) the way the Plain language movement has adapted to the digitalized world and the implications for future development. My observations will be mainly restricted to the English-speaking world, including international organizations where English is one of the official languages, but I will occasionally make reference to other plain language organizations outside the English-speaking world where this seems relevant. I also provide a list of the major organizations involved in promoting plain language in English in the legal sphere today as a reference guide

PLAIN LANGUAGE W TEKSTACH PRAWNYCH – PERSPEKTYWA Z POLSKI

The purpose of this research is to explore plain-language postulates reflecting on legal drafting assumptions since legal acts should be precise, clear and express with no doubts the intention of the legislator. The aim of this project is to commence discussion about improving the clarity of Polish consumer law based on selected plain-language techniques. This article agrees that the aspiration to make the law comprehensible for all subjects is an idealistic postulate. Ultimately, despite this, legislators’ obligation is to make an effort to increase the intelligibility of legislation wherever it is possible.Przedmiotem artykułu, jest omówienie ruchu „plain legal language” czyli zrozumiałej i efektywnej komunikacji w tekstach prawnych. Zaprezentowany zostanie rozwój ruchu „plain language” oraz postulat powszechnego rozumienia prawa, w odniesieniu do polskich dyrektyw redagowania tekstu prawnego. Wybrane techniki i narzędzia standardu „plain language” zostaną w formie eksperymentu zaimplementowane do ustawy konsumenckiej. Artykuł opisuje rozwiązania, które potencjalnie mogą zwiększyć komunikatywność tekstów prawnych

Generating multimedia presentations: from plain text to screenplay

In many Natural Language Generation (NLG) applications, the output is limited to plain text – i.e., a string of words with punctuation and paragraph breaks, but no indications for layout, or pictures, or dialogue. In several projects, we have begun to explore NLG applications in which these extra media are brought into play. This paper gives an informal account of what we have learned. For coherence, we focus on the domain of patient information leaflets, and follow an example in which the same content is expressed first in plain text, then in formatted text, then in text with pictures, and finally in a dialogue script that can be performed by two animated agents. We show how the same meaning can be mapped to realisation patterns in different media, and how the expanded options for expressing meaning are related to the perceived style and tone of the presentation. Throughout, we stress that the extra media are not simple added to plain text, but integrated with it: thus the use of formatting, or pictures, or dialogue, may require radical rewording of the text itself

Higher algebras and mesonic spectrum in two-dimensional QCD

We construct composite operators in two-dimensional bosonized QCD, which obey a $W_\infty$ algebra, and discuss their relation to analogous objects recently obtained in the fermionic language. A complex algebraic structure is unravelled, supporting the idea that the model is integrable. For singlets we find a mass spectrum obeying the Regge behavior.Comment: 11 pages, plain tex, prep. CERN-TH 7365/94, July 199