Writing for our audience

Our philosophy: the latest evidence, no hidden agendas 

Children are as individual and as different as their parents. Making decisions about what’s best for raising children is intensely personal, and changes from situation to situation. Because of this, parents need helpful, supportive information so that they can make their own decisions. They need the facts, without hidden agendas. 

We describe and explain various parenting methods and ideas and let parents choose for themselves, depending on what suits their circumstances. We synthesise the best available information from top experts in Australia and internationally. We present the latest evidence on all available options, prioritised by relevance. 

We don’t direct parents towards particular approaches, but we do give them tools and practical ideas to apply to their own situations. We believe that parents can handle the truth, and we trust them to make their own decisions based on their own values, circumstances, observations and lifestyle. 

By employing the best communication and parenting science, we make it easier for parents and others raising children to understand, remember and use beneficial information and ideas. 

Our philosophy boils down to some simple principles for writing:

• Use ‘if, then’ statements, explaining the likely outcomes of a behaviour, but leaving it up to parents to decide if they want that outcome.

• Avoid saying things like ‘should’, ‘must’, ‘don’t’.

• Give options, not instructions.

• Emphasise the positives – and if a method has a negative outcome, provide positive alternatives.

Plain English

raisingchildren.net.au translates scientific evidence about parenting and raising children into everyday language. We aim for a reading level of Australian Grade 7 (between 12 and 14 years old) after removal of necessary medical or other terms. Plain English is the best way to do this.

Plain English involves writing in a way that is clear, concise and free of jargon. It also involves using a voice and tone that is appropriate for our audience. 

In practice, plain English involves:

• keeping sentences short 

• using active sentences

• using words that are appropriate for the audience 

• speaking directly to the audience

• being concrete and specific.

Keep sentences short

Short sentences make your web copy more useable and more accessible. 

This is because short sentences are more scannable on a web page and more comprehensible to users of low literacy and users with learning difficulties.

Aim for an average sentence length of 15-20 words. This does not mean that all your sentences must be the same length, but note that you can break up most long sentences quite easily.

Keep the number of clauses in your sentences to a minimum. Sometimes you can do this by beginning a subsequent sentence with ‘And’ or ‘But’, which is perfectly acceptable.

Short paragraphs – even paragraphs of 1-2 sentences – are recommended also.

Use active sentences

Active sentences are easier to understand and more appealing to read. In an active sentence, an agent does something. In a passive sentence, something is done to an agent. For example: 

Active: The child health nurse weighed the newborn. 

Passive: The newborn was weighed by the child health nurse.

You should also state clearly who has done something. For example: 

Write this: The mother saw the baby try to reach for the food.

Rather than: It was noted that the baby tried to reach for the food. 

Use appropriate words 

This means using the same language as our audience, which in turn means avoiding jargon and specialist language. 

The first and most important reason for doing this is that parents don’t understand jargon and specialist language. If we write in a way that alienates our audience, we won’t keep that audience.

Also, when we use the same language as our audience, it helps the audience find our content when they type keywords into search engines. If people can’t find our content, they won’t read it.

Appropriate words are usually easy, short and common words, rather than formal or long ones. For example, use ‘buy’ instead of ‘purchase’, ‘help’ instead of ‘assist’, ‘about’ instead of ‘approximately’ and ‘like’ instead of ‘such as’. 

Easy, short and common words include contractions, so use contractions where you can. For example:

• can't 

• won't

• isn't or aren't

• you've.

It’s important to remember that words that seem self-explanatory to us – like ‘cognition’ or ‘executive functioning’ – might seem like jargon to users and be confusing for them. It’s always best to find a more common term, such as ‘thinking and learning’ or ‘planning and control’. 

Sometimes you might need to explain the idea more clearly, remembering that you can usually get rid of specialist language and terminology by breaking an idea down into specific parts.

Speak directly to the audience

First, this means using ‘you’ (in grammar, the ‘second person’), rather than ‘the parent’ (in grammar, the ‘third person’).

Write this: Your baby might sleep better if you turn down the stereo.

Rather than: Babies might find it hard to sleep if their parents are listening to loud music.

An exception to this guideline is when ‘you’ might give the impression that we’re blaming the parent for something. In this case, use ‘parents’. For example:

Parents should not hit their children.

Second, you can often create a sense of speaking directly to users by specifically referring to ‘your child’ (singular) rather than generally referring to ‘children’ (plural). We recommend choosing ‘your child’ over ‘children’ in most instances, except for titles, key points and subheadings.  It's sometimes useful to refer to children if you want to make a general point about child behaviour, development, health and so on, before shifting to 'your child'.

Third, you can speak directly to our audience by using examples that are accessible, engaging and meaningful to parents. Make sure to offer ‘how to’ examples as well as ‘what to’ examples. Try using Facebook to source everyday examples. And remember that we have users from across Australia and from culturally diverse backgrounds. Avoid being too Sydney-centric or Melbourne-centric in your examples.

Be concrete and specific

This means making sure that you explain your ideas, information and advice in clear and practical ways so that users can see how they might apply our content in their everyday lives:

Write this: When your child talks to you, stop and listen to what she's saying.

Rather than: Be present for your child.

Write this: Make a time to speak with your child's teacher.

Rather than: Communicate with your child's school.

Write this: Social media helps your child keep in touch with friends.

Rather than: Social media encourage social connectedness.

As these examples demonstrate, being concrete and specific doesn't necessarily mean taking much longer to say something. But it does mean examining your prose and eliminating any examples of vagueness, generality and 'industry shorthand'. Ask yourself: will the average user understand what this means?

Plain English resources

Nielsen Norman Group: Plain language is for everyone

Plain English Foundation

Plain Language Australia

Lower-literacy audiences: resources

Colter, A. (2012). The audience you didn't know you had. Contents Magazine, 2.

Nielsen, J. (2005). Lower-Literacy Users: Writing for a Broad Consumer Audience. Nielsen Norman Group.