Annetta Cheek

Top of Their Game — In-Game Learning

Bob: Welcome to Top of Their Game, the show where we speak with the people making communications clearer, fairer, and just plain better. I'm your host, Bob Milstein, a lawyer and plain language trainer, practitioner, and advocate. Today I'm excited to speak with yet another legend in the field of plain language advocacy, Dr. Annetta Cheek. Annetta has been a tireless advocate for plain language. She spent 25 years as a federal employee, witnessing firsthand the US government's failure to communicate effectively. While serving as a government employee, Dr. Cheek was chair of PLAIN, a federal inter-agency plain language advocacy group. In that role, Annetta administered the group's website and taught courses on plain language to different government agencies. She also spent four years as the chief plain language expert on Vice President Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government. In 2003, Annetta founded the Center for Plain Language, a non-profit dedicated to plain language advocacy. But perhaps Dr. Cheek's biggest success was her work to pass the Plain Writing Act into law. Thanks to her work, millions of Americans now receive easy-to-understand communication from the federal government. In today's episode, we'll talk about how Annetta first developed her passion for plain language, how she managed to persuade government that legislative fix was worth pursuing, and lessons she's learned as a leading plain language advocate over many decades. Annetta, thanks so much for joining us.

Annetta: My pleasure.

Bob: I understand you've been retired for some time now. My first question: how many days a week are you now committing to the great and glorious cause of plain language?

Annetta: Oh, two to three, because I have to save a couple for my other activity, which is dog training.

Bob: I believe pit bulls might be the weapon of choice.

Annetta: Yes, they are.

Bob: Okay.

Annetta: They are my weapon of choice. Their temperament suits me.

Bob: I might come back to that a little later — I'd like to learn more about the world of pit bulls and how the pit bull method actually helps generate legislative change. Perhaps it's a good metaphor.

Annetta: Well, perhaps it does. Perhaps it does.

Bob: Let's explore that. I want to start at the beginning. Can you tell us about your early career — were you always interested in language, communication, plain language, or did that come at a particular moment?

Annetta: Not really. My PhD is in anthropology, with a specialty in archaeology. I started my career doing archaeology, running a small consulting firm doing work for the federal government while my husband was teaching — he's also an archaeologist. I frequently had the National Park Service as a client, and they became interested in me and hired me into the government, into an archaeology policy office, mainly to do training for other federal agencies in archaeology law. I also got involved in writing regulations dealing with archaeology, and I was always a better-than-average writer — one of the things I did well, as opposed to many things I don't do very well. So I started working on archaeology regs, and in the meantime one of my clients hired me away from the Park Service specifically to write regulations and manage a shop that wrote them. That's what got me into writing for the government — an evolution from archaeology, to writing archaeology, to writing other things.

Bob: I'll confess I'm a practicing lawyer, so when you talk about being commissioned to write regs, my first question is: why didn't they get the lawyers to do that? Is there an obvious answer?

Annetta: There is, and it's that lawyers tended to be terrible writers and needed a writer to help them write well. A writing team in government typically has three components: subject matter experts — frequently engineers, environmental specialists, and so on — lawyers, and writers. Lawyers aren't normally great at writing something the regulated community can easily understand and comply with.

Bob: I'll ask the obvious question: why do you think that is?

Annetta: Law schools. I don't think law schools teach the craft very well in general — there are exceptions — but also the tradition of law. There's still a lot of "people don't have to be able to read it, they can have their lawyer explain it to them," though it's faded a bit. I come from a family of lawyers — my father was a lawyer, my sister is a lawyer.

Bob: I'm sorry to hear that.

Annetta: Yes. I have a nephew who's a lawyer, my mother-in-law was a lawyer. I've been exposed to lawyers all my life.

Bob: That's a significant genetic challenge.

Annetta: Yes, it is. They were most disappointed I went into anthropology.

Bob: When it comes to that difficult form of lawyer writing, how do you deal with the inevitable "yeah, but" — "This is complex, this is technical, this is tightly regulated, we've got to get it right"?

Annetta: Very common. Usually it's a process — they don't believe you the first time. My first big project writing in government was a regulation. I only got the opportunity because the lawyers had failed to observe required processes and hadn't given the Office of Management and Budget enough time to review it, so there was a six-month downtime where they were twiddling their thumbs. I appealed to a higher authority, the secretary of the department, and said, "Since nothing's happening, can I take this opportunity to rewrite this reg?" So I rewrote part of it and sent it to the lawyers, who came back and said, "This is not correct — this is not the way the law is." I said, "Well, how not?" They pointed to sections that were "wrong," and I said, "But let's look at what you wrote — this is what you wrote, I'm translating what you wrote." There was a lot of mulling it over, and they finally, very reluctantly, agreed that what they'd written wasn't what they meant — because they'd written in their standard lawyerly fashion, it came out wrong, and I'd translated it accurately into something that was wrong because they were wrong. That was an aha moment for them, and those particular lawyers — I worked with them on several other projects — were always very cooperative afterward. But it's not always that easy.

Bob: What was the aha moment for you, getting into plain language advocacy?

Annetta: I took a class. I was writing regs at the time — clearer than average, I think — but someone from another agency said, "I just took this class from a wonderful guy about reg writing, you should take it." So I did. His name was Tom Morawski, a retired professor of English at the Air Force Academy, now doing government contracting. He was — I don't know if you'll relate to this, not being from the US — a Southern Baptist minister of plain language. It was close to a religion to him, and he was an outstanding teacher and writer. He showed me the error of government's ways in writing regulations and has been a big influence on my career.

Bob: Speaking of that career, can you take us through the early efforts to introduce plain language into US federal government work?

Annetta: I wasn't alone — I was in a handful of close-to-zealots, several of whom had training from the same guy. A handful of us, literally five or six, started meeting weekly, advocating within our agencies. We were then joined by a staff officer from the Office of Management and Budget, who'd taken Tom Morawski's class and become an advocate too. He started sponsoring our meetings, housed at an OMB building, which attracted attention because everyone had their regs reviewed by OMB. The group grew, and we named it the Plain English Network — because that worked out nicely as "PEN" — meeting monthly with speakers. We developed a website hosted by one of the agencies, and got a lot done because we were a skunkworks: people in the shed out back that nobody really knows what they're doing, nobody funding them, nobody telling them what to do, just turning out projects they felt were important. There was no funding for plain language — just a small, growing number of advocates nursing it along in their agencies.

Bob: I imagine those advocates, particularly early on, met with significant resistance.

Annetta: Oh yes, they did. But we had tools — before-and-after examples were always powerful, particularly using an agency's own examples. You'd find something a manager typically had to review, give them a plain language version, and ask, "Which of these would you rather review when you get ten a month?" The answer was always obvious, and we got a lot of converts that way. When Vice President Gore did an award, he insisted there always be a before-and-after component, because they're more powerful than just an original plain language document.

Bob: Absolutely. What do you say when someone acknowledges the improvement but still resists, saying, "If I gave this to my target reader, they'd be affronted"?

Annetta: That's right, and sometimes it's true, because it's not what people expect from government, so they're not sure about it. You can do user testing to show preferences. I read one study — I won't remember the reference — showing before-and-after government material, and the segment most enthusiastic about the "after" were the highly educated readers, while less educated readers were less enthusiastic, I think because it didn't look "right" to them. I dealt with an attorney in the White House once — we were writing a presidential memo on Gore's behalf, and he couldn't stand how we were writing it. We asked why, and he said, "It's not magisterial." So to him, government writing should be magisterial. I didn't know we had that kind of government.

Bob: On a similar note, I read an interview where the interviewer cheekily gave you a plain language rewrite of the Gettysburg Address — something like, "It's time to break free from England because it's our God-given right, we're every bit as good as they are, but it's only fair we explain why we get to do this." Your response was that it's hard to evaluate writing from that long ago in today's context, since that was more normal writing back then — "on the other hand," you said, "if the government were writing that paragraph today, it would have a lot more words."

Annetta: Right.

Bob: Is there a legitimate distinction between writing as a rhetorical device to inspire and move, versus functional information sharing?

Annetta: Absolutely. The Gettysburg Address was meant to inspire, and you write that differently. Government mostly writes instructions — pamphlets on how to apply, regulations about how you're required to do things. Those are all instructions, and frankly that's where most of my experience lies. When you write instructions, you want to be crystal clear — you're not trying to inspire, you're trying to get people to follow them, and if they can't understand them, they won't.

Bob: And you might also sometimes be trying to engage and persuade.

Annetta: Sometimes, though regulations themselves don't do too much of that — maybe in the preambles. Take a pamphlet about health testing, trying to convince people to get tested for something: you're trying to inspire them and then give clear direction. So you have to have all of that in mind when you write. Some people think plain language is just a list of "do this, don't do that" — it's not. Plain language is about the reader and what they need, and you change your writing to suit them. I was involved in a project for the Center for Disease Control, wanting billboards in inner cities to discourage youth from smoking, and through research we found you didn't even want to be grammatically correct on those billboards, because that didn't speak to the reader you wanted — you had to speak in their language. That's really the core of plain language.

Bob: Of course, public health communication quality was a very big deal during COVID, as was the need to educate people about vaccines.

Annetta: Right. And we haven't been very successful at that yet.

Bob: No, no. You mentioned Al Gore earlier, which signals that plain language generated interest at pretty high levels of government eventually — but there must have been a fair climb to get there. Could you take us to the founding of the Center for Plain Language?

Annetta: Yes, that was after Clinton and Gore had gotten interested, and the group in government decided we wanted to put on a conference. Government employees are very constrained in what they can do without their agency's approval — hard to get approval for things like signing contracts or soliciting funds. So the impulse to create the Center was to have an outside-of-government arm, a nonprofit, that could solicit funds, sign contracts, and put on conferences to spread the word. We didn't have the law in mind yet, because we didn't have a law — but it worked out well, because once we got the law, we had the Center, and then we had report cards.

Bob: By "the law," you mean the Plain Writing Act of 2010.

Annetta: Right. I believe we founded the Center in 2003. There was an international organization — now called Plain, founded in Canada but now worldwide — that put on conferences every other year, and they asked us to host one because they wanted to expand. We were very excited but couldn't do it, because we had no way to — that's why we founded the Center.

Bob: Was plain language legislation a glint in your eyes from early on, or was there a specific moment or opportunity you sought to seize?

Annetta: I started in plain language around 1994, when we began meeting. The presidential memo came out very late in the Clinton administration, around 2000, and we saw its power — that's when we started talking about maybe pursuing legislation. It wasn't right at the beginning, but it took a long time to get there, because that kind of action takes a long time to achieve.

Bob: I'm quite interested in the making of that sausage — how one gets government decision-makers across the line on such significant reform. It's not a theoretical question — New Zealand has its legislation, currently a bit of a political football —

Annetta: Right.

Bob: — and a lot of plain language people in Australia are keen to explore whether governments here might have similar appetite. Could you tell us about the process of —

Annetta: Well —

Bob: — making legislation happen?

Annetta: Sure. Frankly, there were two of us mainly: myself and a guy named John Stolarski, who'd been a political appointee at the Small Business Administration, an attorney very devoted to plain language. Because he'd been a political appointee, he knew people on the Hill involved in small business — and there's a small business aspect to plain language, since it's easier for small businesses to comply with government requirements if they're clear. Something like 97% of US businesses are classified as small business — everybody knows the huge companies, but percentage-wise small businesses are by far the majority. So he knew people, and I started going to the Hill and talking to people, trying to get them interested. This wasn't something my agency would have been happy about — you don't do that kind of thing. I was fairly high up at the time, at Federal Aviation, an assistant to the administrator specifically for plain language, so I wasn't buried deep in the bureaucracy. But nevertheless, I did it anyway, and we took several stabs at it — a bill, at least partially, in 2006, another in 2007, and then we hit the jackpot with Bruce Braley, from Kansas, a trial attorney very dedicated to plain language. One thing I learned — staffers told me as I went around different offices trying to get them to back Braley's bill — was that they appreciated that I was there not because I was paid, but because I believed in it and could make them believe in it, because I knew what I was talking about. They found that more powerful than the paid political consultants they dealt with routinely. So it was a lot of blood and sweat and trips to the Hill. I actually retired around 2007, because the heat from my agency was getting a bit much — they called me in and said, "You are one of the few people in government so important you have to assume you're working for the government 24/7, never off the clock" — basically telling me I couldn't take leave for a couple of hours to go to the Hill because, even on leave, I was working for the government. I was about to hit 62, so I took retirement at the earliest moment I'd get full compensation, so I could keep going to the Hill. After that, it was about another three years until we got the bill. Not a short process — you need stamina.

Bob: For those unfamiliar with the legislation, could you say a bit about its anatomy — the definition of plain language, who it covers, what compliance looks like?

Annetta: I don't remember the details — I haven't looked at it lately — but it's basically the standard definition, about people impacted by the Act. It did not, unfortunately, cover regulations — if we'd tried to cover regulations, we would have lost the Act. It has no penalty for failure to comply — if we'd tried that, we would have lost it too. Politics is the art of the possible, and those things weren't possible. It basically addresses material agencies use to deal directly with the public — except regs — that the public needs to understand to get government benefits or comply with government requirements. There were various impositions on government: they had to have a contact person, a web page, an annual report, and training.

Bob: What happens if they didn't do the training?

Annetta: Not a damn thing. If they didn't train and their work wasn't any good, it would show up in the report card and they'd get bad press. That really was the most powerful thing.

Bob: Tell us more about that report card — was it a considered initiative to offset the strategic call not to seek legislative teeth?

Annetta: Yes, definitely. We had the bill, we had the law — a great achievement — but we knew that without something more, we wouldn't make much progress. Yes, they had to do an annual report, but agencies have to do hundreds of annual reports. A PR person working for the Center suggested a report card, and we jumped on it. The first year, we didn't really look at their writing — the Act was only a year old, too early to look for real achievement — so we looked just at administrative compliance: did they have a point of contact, a website, did they do their report, do their training. In the second year, we started looking at products, and quickly figured out we had to be very narrow — the Center settled on looking at material on websites, comparing two or three agencies on a particular topic. I think it had a major impact. We also did the ClearMark Awards, the carrot part, which were also influential — probably not as influential as the report card, but federal employees like getting awards.

Bob: Could you say more about the ClearMark Awards and its neighbor, the WonderMark Awards?

Annetta: A lot of what the Center did initially, including the Awards and report card, was aimed at government. Eventually we broadened to the private sector, and I've seen them doing even more of that now, including in Spanish and French, which is great. But it was a tool to influence government — we heard many times from agencies that got bad marks on report cards, so we figured if they complained about bad marks, giving them something good would also motivate them. I reviewed those awards for maybe seven years, and over that time you could really see improvement. It's only a tiny fraction of what government writes, but the fraction most likely to impact the public. So I think it was a very successful program, like the report card, and combined they were particularly powerful.

Bob: Based on the befores and afters you've seen, are there frequent-flyer deficiencies in the "before," and any bang-for-buck fixes the rewrites demonstrate?

Annetta: I don't know if I can tie it specifically to the Awards, but for government writing in general: long sentences and passive voice were a major problem — still are, though you can now find lots of examples free of those issues. The health sector in particular has been successful in doing a better job, and Social Security too. One of my pet peeves is what we call hidden verbs, or nominalizations, where you use a noun instead of a verb — instead of "the committee reported," you say "the committee issued a report." Bureaucratic writing is still full of that.

Bob: Harold Evans, former editor of The Times of London, wrote a book in retirement called Do I Make Myself Clear? and he calls them zombie nouns.

Annetta: Yes, lots of names for that particular sin.

Bob: I know from my own training that people who don't quite get the active–passive distinction find it hard to apply. Do you have techniques for imparting that in a practical way?

Annetta: A fellow early advocate used this example constantly. The active sentence is "Fred swallowed a frog." The passive is "A frog was swallowed by Fred." And the government version of passive is the one that doesn't even name the actor: "A frog was swallowed." For some reason that caught people's attention and helped them understand where we were coming from — that standard way of writing a good sentence: actor, verb, object. Just follow that and you'll be in good shape. But feel free to use the frog.

Bob: I will, thank you. We've walked through several of your significant advocacy roles, but I want to turn to one that's quite current: the ISO International Plain Language Standard and the parts hanging off it. Could you tell me about your role?

Annetta: Sure. We haven't mentioned the International Plain Language Federation yet — I've been involved with that for a long time; it was founded by the Center for Plain Language, Plain International, and Clarity, and I was chair for a while, on the board a lot. Back in 2010, the Federation published an article in Clarity setting out a number of goals. The first was a definition of plain language — I worked on that with Joe Kimble and Neil James, among others, and we published a definition similar to the Act and similar to what all three organizations had said for a long time, starting with Ginny Redish: that readers can find what they need, understand it, and use it. The second goal was a standard for plain language, and once we'd checked off the first, we were ready for the second. You'd have to ask Christopher Bamford about this, because he's the one who advocated we go to ISO — he thought it would have more impact than the relatively small plain language community doing it alone. We drafted a rough standard, Christopher went off to Standards Australia, and, much to our surprise, ISO said yes. I'd always pictured ISO as doing standards for toasters and wall outlets, so I was surprised to learn their biggest-selling standard is about managing organizations — a plain language standard wasn't at all unusual for them. I was on the drafting committee, and Christopher managed the working group that had formed. We got it out in relatively good time — issued in '23. Since then, the legal part has come out, and we have Writing Science for the Public fairly far along, a design one, and one that turns the first — which was just guidance — into organizational requirements, so organizations could be certified as plain-language organizations. We're starting an evaluation one too. It's been a very active group — much more active than a typical ISO group, which speaks well for the plain language community. We started with 20-some people on our Working Group 11, and now have almost 150 from around the world.

Bob: Absolutely. For people who don't know some of the players: you mentioned Christopher Bamford, my colleague, the founder of our training business, Words and Beyond. He put in an enormous amount of time and effort into making this happen, but he always acknowledges your immense role — he regards you as co-sponsor of this initiative.

Annetta: Well, probably yes. I was certainly key on the drafting committee — he wasn't, because he was managing the whole team, which kept him busy. What can I say — I've experienced an expert at getting people to do things.

Bob: It might be the pit bull part of it.

Annetta: Yes, possibly. And persistent. That's part of it too.

Bob: You mentioned part 3 being science writing for the public. Was that a considered position — effectively a concession that peer-to-peer scientific communication is a different beast?

Annetta: We started out without making that distinction, then decided peer-to-peer wasn't totally different — we say in there that writing for your peers, you'd do well to follow this standard's advice too, but our primary concern was writing for the public. It was a very big topic if we'd included peer-to-peer fully, and we could always tackle that later if there was appetite.

Bob: What's the big picture with all these moving parts? What are you hoping will come of this, and how will it change how people write and the commitment organizations make?

Annetta: Having started in the mid-90s, I can see a lot of change worldwide — we started with a 20-some member committee and now have 150. That's sort of typical of what's happened over the years, but it's still a drop in the bucket. I think ISO's role can be very powerful in helping spread plain language. We have setbacks, but we'll come back, because it's the right thing to do. At some point — I don't remember whether I said it or Gore did, it's ancient history — one of us said plain language is a civil right, referring specifically to government writing. I think it's the right thing to do, it will continue to spread, and the imprimatur ISO brings will certainly help.

Bob: Is a civil right the same as a human right?

Annetta: Yes, except I think we were speaking particularly about government, so a bit more on the civil rights side. But yes, I think it is a human right to understand what the government is telling you to do — you can't be expected to do it if you don't understand it.

Bob: Earlier you described some of your pioneering colleagues as zealots. Perhaps because of that, it's often said the plain language world is a movement. Are you comfortable with that?

Annetta: Yes, but it's not the whole picture. It certainly started as a movement, and I think whenever plain language starts somewhere new — a new country, company, or industry — in its early days it's a movement, almost has to be. As it matures, it becomes more of a profession. A lot of people don't like hearing "movement" — they want to say "profession." Well, it was a movement before it was a profession. It is, in some ways, a profession now, but wherever it starts new, it starts as a movement. That's the anthropologist in me speaking.

Bob: Given that continuum, where do you think we are in 2025, the date of this recording?

Annetta: Depends where we are. Norway, one of the leading countries, has gone beyond a movement, I think. In the US, in some segments it's gone beyond a movement, in others it hasn't — very variable, and sometimes it may unfortunately move backwards, needing more of a movement again when we lose ground to people with strange ideas about the world. All I can say is it's variable, changes over time, and there will always be a movement aspect to it, I believe.

Bob: If Annetta Cheek were seeking to persuade the US federal government in 2025 to introduce plain writing legislation, what would her prospects be?

Annetta: Just as good as before. If you started today and got a bill in five years, you'd have done very well — and in the interim you'd have talked to a lot of people, written a lot of papers, done a lot of before-and-afters, which is what we did. You're talking about Congress, not the executive branch, because you get a law through Congress. There are still a lot of people there who'll listen — everyone in Congress has their pet interests, so you put in the time, go up there with before-and-after examples from their area of interest, and that attracts attention. There are lots of sources telling you what different congressmen and senators care about, and you use that research to understand who you're talking to and what will appeal to them. It's a long, laborious process. When I said there were two of us going up the Hill, there were another half-dozen who'd respond when I said, "We need a paper on this topic," because it was a particular senator's issue — they'd pull together examples and training material so I didn't have to do it all myself. I don't think it would be any different today — might take a little longer, or, having already had the experience, might come faster.

Bob: Annetta, before we close, I wanted to ask a couple of final things. One a bit personal, the other bigger picture. What's something people would be surprised to learn about you?

Annetta: I don't really know. They now know I'm an archaeologist — that may surprise some people.

Bob: That's pretty cool.

Annetta: Yeah. Of course, I think most people know I have pit bulls, though some will be surprised by that too.

Bob: Do you compete for show?

Annetta: I used to compete in dog sports — never in dog shows, where you show off how pretty your dog is. I competed in something called Schutzhund, now called IGP, but more people would know it as Schutzhund. Not a large community worldwide — it has a bit of a police-dog aspect: tracking, complex obedience exercises, and protection exercises. I did that for a long time with my dogs. I've aged out of that sport now, unfortunately.

Bob: Getting back to writing: for someone starting out in plain language writing, or wanting a refresher, are there resources you'd recommend as an obvious go-to?

Annetta: I really like Richard Wydick's little book, Plain English for Lawyers — very accessible, cheap on Amazon, a great little book. If you want to read about why plain language matters and its impact, Joe Kimble's work — Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please. I also like Martin Cutts's Oxford handbook. We could be here all day, so I'll stop with those.

Bob: What about writing in general — beautiful writers, wonderful stylists?

Annetta: Hemingway, I guess. I like Asimov. I really enjoyed Orwell. And Emily Dickinson.

Bob: Right — I was a big Asimov fan when I was young.

Annetta: Yeah.

Bob: I went through all his books.

Annetta: There was some interview with him in a science fiction magazine — I think they interviewed a bunch of science fiction writers — and he said something disparaging about his own writing, which was sort of amusing, but I thought he was a terrific writer too.

Bob: Super bright man. Now, finally, I wanted to ask you to reflect on your legacy. Looking back on an extraordinary career, what are you most proud of in your plain language advocacy life?

Annetta: I think the Act, and getting the federal government to turn a few degrees toward plain language. The US federal government is a huge ship, and turning it takes a lot of energy — I think we turned it. A little anecdote: I finished my federal career at Federal Aviation, specifically to do plain language — the only federal job I had that was specifically for that. I got on the elevator once, and there were two staffers talking, who didn't know me and I didn't know them, and one said to the other, "Boy, this document really needs plain language" — which made me feel really good, precisely because they didn't know who I was but they knew about plain language and thought it was important.

Bob: Music to your ears?

Annetta: Yep.

Bob: What advice would you give the next generation of plain language advocates?

Annetta: Be consistent and persistent. Particularly persistence.

Bob: And if you could go back in time to speak to the younger Annetta Cheek, what advice would you give her? Same thing?

Annetta: Yes, I think the same thing — be persistent. It's sort of in my nature, and getting that law passed really required persistence, with so many setbacks for reasons that seemed absolutely illogical. But persistence eventually paid off. Sometimes I think I should have retired right after the law passed — I was already retired from the government by then.

Bob: Going out on a high.

Annetta: Yes. Going out on a high.

Bob: Right. Well, maybe that leads to my final question. How would you like to be remembered in the plain language community?

Annetta: As somebody who got things done for plain language, particularly in the federal government, but more recently internationally. I've worked hard, and I think I've gotten a lot done, and I appreciate it when people comment on that.

Bob: Well, I think that's definitely going to happen — your reputation will last a very long time in this world. Annetta, I'm so grateful to you for taking the time to speak with me today. Thank you so much.

Annetta: My pleasure. Hopefully I'll see you in the flesh someday again.

Bob: Hope so. Thank you so much. Whether we call it a movement or a profession or just a plain old commercial venture, Annetta reminds us that plain language is a civil right. She also helps inspire those of us who still believe there are opportunities to persuade governments of all stripes around the world to embed plain language writing principles into public communications through legislation or regulation. To learn more about Annetta's work, be sure to check out our show notes. Top of Their Game has been brought to you by In-Game Learning: the most fun you'll ever learn. Visit ingamelearning.com and see just how much fun online plain language writing can be. If you enjoyed today's episode, share it with a colleague, leave us a review, or — better yet — rewrite something terrible and send it to us. We will love you forever, and so might your target readers. I'm Bob Milstein, and until next time, go forth and clarify.

Annetta Cheek

Episode 2: Annetta Cheek