8th Biannual Forum on Plain English
Thursday, February 24, 2022
Zoom Webinar, UHD
10 am to 3 pm CST
Our one-day forum will offer the following presentations along with discussion opportunities:
- We help people understand energy: How the U.S. Energy Information Administration embraced plain language and expanded its reach
- Use your plain language skills to improve your survey
Presenters:
Colleen Blessing was the senior writer/editor and plain language lead for the U.S. Energy Information
Administration (EIA), the statistical branch of the U.S. Department of Energy, where
she worked closely with agency authors (statisticians, engineers, mathematicians,
industry specialists) at all levels to improve their writing skills. She served as
primary author of the agency's Writing Style Guide—which subsequently was adopted by three other U.S. federal agencies and won the Center
for Plain Language’s 2013 ClearMark award for Best Original Public Sector document.
After retiring in 2018, Colleen volunteers as an editor for local organizations and
as a teacher of English as a second language.
Gina Pearson is an entrepreneurial, innovative, and versatile executive with three decades of
digital communications experience spanning the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission,
U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Labor,
and U.S. Department of Education. An early proponent of usability and user-centered
design within the federal government, Gina is a recipient of the prestigious Presidential
Rank Award—the annual White House honor to highly select members of the Senior Executive
Service for sustained, exceptional performance. She has been recognized twice with
Federal Computer Week's Fed 100 award and serves as a judge for the annual Webby Awards.
Caroline Jarrett is the forms specialist, advising organizations on how to make forms easier to fill
in and more effective. Recent clients include the Future Farming and Countryside Programme
for England, NHS Digital, and the UK Government Digital Service. Caroline’s interest
in surveys began when she discovered the extensive literature on survey methodology,
much of it around making questions easier to answer. Caroline’s latest book, Surveys That Work: A Practical Guide for Designing and Running Better Surveys, was published in 2021. She is co-author of Forms That Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability and the textbook User Interface
Design and Evaluation.
Program (Central Standard Time)
Watch Video of Session 1
Watch Video of Session ll
Forum Co-Organizers:
Michelle Moosally and Natalia Matveeva, The Institute for Plain English Research and Study (IPERS)
For questions or comments, email us at matveevan@uhd.edu or call 713-222-5371.
Sponsors and Contributors:
This program is made possible in part the College of Humanities and Social Sciences
and the Institute for Plain English Research and Study at UHD.