Writing Regulations

Because federal regulations affect the health and safety of most Americans, the White House wanted to make them easier to follow and enforce. Our approach:

• Propose a new look and sound. We won acceptance for fresh techniques that distinguish truly useful regulations from ones that punish readers just for trying to figure out what Washington wants. Among the techniques: sections written as “I” questions and “you” answers.

• Teach the regulators. We taught our fresh techniques to regulatory agencies across the country. At the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for example, we held workshops for teams of writers to guide them as they started revising regulations, guidance documents, and fact sheets into plain English. Later we edited their work for publication.

When the project ended, our several-dozen client agencies had clarified hundreds of documents. Dramatic improvement earned fan mail from the public and awards to four clients and us from the White House.

Learn how the winning agencies did it in Writing Readable Regulations. It’s loaded with practical instruction and illustrated with many dozens of examples—all reinforced by classroom-tested exercises. This book is the next best thing to having us at your side as you write a regulation that helps readers find requirements quickly and understand them easily.

“I recommend this book to all drafters.”

Professor Joseph Kimble,
Thomas M. Cooley Law School

“The public would be well served if Congress required regulators to use this book.”

Professor Steven Schooner,
George Washington University Law School