Clarifying Federal Regulations by Using Plain English

THIS ARTICLE, THE FIRST OF A TWO-PART SERIES, examines the history of attempts to make Federal procurement regulations more comprehensible. It consists mainly of a 1973 address by the late Herbert Roback before the Washington Chapte of STC. Mr. Shimberg's contributions here are to set the stage and to tell of action Federal agencies are taking to clarify their regulations, largely as a result of the President's 1978 Executive Order to improve government writing. In Part II of this series, Mr. Shimberg will describe the progress some of the Federal agencies are making in translating their regulations into plain English; he will also suggest how technical communicators can participate in this relatively new effort.