Weekly Recap 1/2-1/8

Well we are back in the swing of school, a rather abrupt start after a short break.


I procrastinated with my thesis a lot but I do think I added some good sources about using "Plain Language".  George Orwell wrote an essay in the 1946s entitled Politics and English Language that I quoted:


"Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase—some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse—into the dustbin, where it belongs"


A more recent source is from Bryan Garner's Essay Legal Writing in Plain English. He writes that the plain English “…phrase certainly shouldn't connote drab and dreary language. Actually, plain English is typically quite interesting to read. It's robust and direct—the opposite of gaudy, pretentious language. You achieve plain English when you use the simplest, most straightforward way of expressing an idea. You can still choose interesting words. But you'll avoid fancy ones that have everyday replacements meaning precisely the same thing.”


These two quotes sum up in a much more eloquent way what I've been trying to articulate as my goal for the language.


More in the making side of things, I am excited to reformat my kits.  I am going to try and segment them by the user (ie. immigrant, u.s. citizen sponsor, and u.s. permanent resident) , not the process milestone (ie.  elegibility, filing, immigrating).  I want to have the content and a mock up for each ready for our small group critique on the 19th.


I feel really good about my project, especially after getting my write-up/feedback post review.  It cleared up my uneasiness about how the review went.