Background: In policy and law contexts, plain-language practice and research tend to focus on the benefits of plain language for specific nonexpert or public audiences. However, as plain-language use has proliferated, documents targeted for revision increasingly include those with insider and expert primary audiences. This study investigates the effects of plain-language revision on insider audiences following the adoption of a revised city charter in a Midwestern US city. Research questions: 1. How does plain-language revision affect the way that insider city-government users make sense of the city charter? 2. How does plain-language revision affect the way that insider city-government users act on the city charter? Literature review: Plain language-a strategy that writers use to make texts more effective for users-is historically and ideologically associated with helping public or vulnerable audiences to access complex information. This core priority toward public or nonexpert audiences is important; however, it has also resulted in a limited understanding of the full scope of plain-language audiences, especially in contexts where insider and expert audiences are primary users. Methodology: This study, informed by genre theory, is a qualitative case study in which textual artifacts and interview data were collected and analyzed using a two-cycle qualitative coding process. Results: The analysis showed many effects, nearly all positive, for insiders and experts. Conclusions: This article focuses on two areas of impact: charter authority and user practices. I explore these areas, which include improved navigation, organization, and processes, through the concept of interplay between the unrevised and revised charters.

This examines the complex relationship between plain language and ethical work in technical and professional communication (TPC). This book is a timely and needed reinvigoration of plain language within TPC research. The author asserts that plain language has been understudied in TPC recently, despite its increasing pervasiveness in engineering, law, health communication, business, and other fields. The author contributes a model to identify bureaucratic, unfamiliar, rights-oriented, and critical (BUROC) situations where using plain language can support ethical communication between writers and readers. To explore this model, he effectively balances TPC ethics theory with concrete descriptions of real-world applications of plain language. The book closely aligns scholarship and practice. TPC is viewed as a rhetorical and humanistic enterprise, and plain language can help to advance the profession's broader ethical commitment to clear, accessible communication.