What we offer
- Our accreditation of your public documents with the Clear English Standard logo – see Editing menu.
- High-quality writing-skills courses for your staff – see Writing-skills courses menu.
- A distance-learning course to improve every individual’s writing skills – see Writing-skills courses menu.
- Our accreditation of your website with the Clear English Standard logo – see Editing menu.
- Rapid, affordable editing of your documents and website, even if you choose not to use the Clear English Standard – see Editing menu.
We work for every kind of organization, offering a first-class service by published authors and editors at a reasonable cost. We are a business, independent of the UK government. So, just to be clear, our accreditation services for documents and websites are not part of any official scheme.
Updates
- The fifth edition of Martin Cutts’s book the Oxford Guide to Plain English is now on sale. Order at www.oup.com using promotion code ADFLYK2 to save 30%.
- We provided the guest speaker for a conference of European Parliament translators in Luxembourg. Download the speech here.
- Working around Covid-19 Our editing services are unchanged. Our writing-skills courses are available for small-group tuition using a combination of Zoom, Teams, email and phone (ask for details). Our distance-learning course remains available (see Writing-skills courses menu). We hope to resume face-to-face courses soon.
- Our latest paperback, Nailing the Lies of the Plain English Campaign, is available on free download here (116 pages, 10MB). The book critically examines the claims and activities of a well-known operator in the plain-language field. For details, see Books.
Our expert team members
Our small team of published authors and editors are highly experienced in the writing-skills field. The company is managed by Martin Cutts, author of Lucid Law, the Plain English Lexicon and the Oxford Guide to Plain English. Most of our courses are presented by Ruth Thornton, one of the best writing-skills trainers in the UK and the author of the Adult Learners’ Writing Guide (Chambers). Martin and Ruth are assisted by several tried and trusted freelances.
Find out more about our expert team members here.


Why use plain language?
Whether you’re writing to customers, colleagues or members of the public, it makes sense to use language they’ll easily be able to understand. We can call this ‘plain language’ or ‘clear language’. Plain language improves efficiency and saves money because more people will read and act upon the documents you send them. Plain language is now required by many leading organizations and industries, by several regulators and even by some laws.
Find out more about the importance of using plain language here.
Plain Language Commission is independent of the UK Government.

We belong to PLAIN, the international association for plain-language supporters and practitioners around the world.