ISO requires that its standards be purchased. You can buy a copy directly from ISO or you can see if your country’s standards organization sells them. You can find standards to buy, as well as links to countries’ standards organizations, on the ISO store website.

Your country’s standard organization will have a licensing agreement with ISO that sets out the rules for this. Please contact them directly to find out what that agreement is. You can find out what organization in your country is an ISO member in its member directory.

If your country doesn’t sell ISO standards, you can refer to ISO’s Customer Licence Agreement.

Your country’s standard organization will have a licensing agreement with ISO that sets out the rules about what you can do with the standard. Please contact them directly to find out what that agreement is. You can find out what organization in your country is an ISO member in ISO’s member directory.

Anyone can mention that they use an ISO standard but you cannot make any claim about compliance without formal certification.

ISO lists some rules about using its name, logo, and certain terminology about its standards. According to this guidance, you are not allowed to say that you, your company, or your products and services are ISO certified, ISO registered or ISO compliant.

The current standard is for guidance only and is not intended to formally certify documents, individuals, organizations or training.

The International Plain Language Federation has established a certification committee that is exploring suitable systems and requirements to enable certification, and it will make further announcements as that work proceeds.

You can tell people about the benefits of using the standard. Here are some examples you can use, based on the audience:

• This standard will help to increase your credibility.

• This standard will help you build and enhance your brand. 

• This standard will help to increase your profits/reduce expenses by:
  • • supporting branding
    • increasing sales
    • decreasing complaints/correspondence/call centre costs

You can also follow the main plain language organizations on social media and share their posts: the Center for Plain Language, Clarity and PLAIN (Plain Language Association International).

ISO arranges for each of its standards to be reviewed at least every 5 years. The review is conducted by the experts on the ISO committee or working group responsible for the standard. Also that committee or working group can review the standard whenever it thinks a review is necessary. 

If you have suggested revisions to the standard, you can submit them to your national standard body. 

Right now, the standard is available in English and French. However, the standard is not just for English. It’s language neutral. The ISO working group that developed the standard has representatives from 25 countries speaking 19 languages. So the standard works in most languages and across all sectors.

The guidance in the standard includes many plain language practices that are not language-related, such as focusing on what readers need to know, using a logical sequence, and using techniques to organize and design a document. 

The guidance that relates to language is high level, so it’s not specific to any one language. For example, the standard talks about using culturally relevant language, using words that your readers know, and using clear sentences

You can read more about this in our fact sheet called Language neutral: the international plain language standard is not just for English

Some countries will localize the standard. Localizing means translating the standard for your language or country. It can also mean making additions to the standard to reflect local needs. For example, a country may want to add more detailed aspects of a specific language, such as grammar preferences that improve clarity.

The ISO plain language standard is language neutral. It is written in a way that makes it applicable to most languages and all sectors. So even if you use the English version, it will generally work for your language.

The ISO plain language standard is not related to the ASD-100 Simplified Technical English standard.  ASD-100 Simplified Technical English is for preparing technical documentation in a controlled language, to help second-language speakers of English to unambiguously understand technical manuals written in English.

The plain language standard is not language specific. Unlike ASD-100, it is not written for English only. It can be applied to most, if not all, languages. It’s also not just for technical materials. It can be used in all sectors. The principles of plain language can also be applied for documents that are drafted using controlled languages.

So the plain language standard is more of an overarching standard.

You can look at the information we’ve prepared on this.

• Guide to Adopting the ISO Plain Language Standard
• How to Get the ISO Standard Adopted in Your Country: Checklist

If you have questions after reading these, please send us a follow-up email.

What does localizing mean for an international standard? It means translating, or adjusting, the standard for your country. It can also mean making additions to the standard to reflect local needs.

A country’s standards body that is a member of ISO can either

• endorse the standard (just say they agree with the standard as it is), or
• they can adopt the standard as a standard for their country.

Some countries choose to just refer to ISO standards rather than endorse or adopt them. 

If a country adopts the ISO standard, they can translate it and they can make some minor changes to it. ISO has rules about how much can be changed in a standard and still have it be the same standard.

There is more detail in the “Localizing the ISO standard” section of the PLAIN e-journal issue called Standards, training, certification: An update from the International Plain Language Federation.

The current standard is Part 1. There are likely to be other parts that could further address, for example:

• A particular sector of the economy, such as legal writing and drafting.
• Further details on plain language practices, such as information design.

There may be more parts that are suggested over time. 

Countries may also localize the standard, which means translating or adjusting the standard for a specific country. It can also mean making additions to the standard to reflect local needs. For example, a country may want to add more detailed aspects of a specific language, such as grammar preferences that improve clarity. In English, examples of this are preferring the active voice to the passive voice and preferring verbs to nouns.

The standard is based on an internationally accepted definition of plain language. It was developed by an international committee of experts through ISO’s well-regarded consensus model. And is based on empirical evidence. So it has a lot of expertise and evidence behind it.

ISO standards present information that the experts involved have agreed on. In ISO’s description of what standards are, it says that “Standards are the distilled wisdom of people with expertise in their subject matter and who know the needs of the organizations they represent.” Standards are “a formula that describes the best way of doing something.”

It summarizes the information you’ve been using and perhaps provides information you are not aware of. This makes it a useful tool to quickly assess your work against, making sure you haven’t forgotten any of the dozens of steps you need to go through when writing or editing a document.

You can read a timeline about how the experts proposed and developed the standard.

Several of the experts who developed the standard have been working on research in this area for many years. And the other experts who provided input or comments have been following current research for several years.

The International Plain Language Federation has published a bibliography of some of the research that the standard is based on.

The ISO plain language standard provides a clear understanding of what plain language is and how you can achieve it. It will help you to give your intended readers the information they can easily find, understand and use.

When the plain language world first began to consider the possibility of a plain language standard, it grappled with whether standards have the capacity to govern something as subjective as writing. After all, writing in plain language involves at least some creativity. Not as much as is needed to create works of art but there is a level of creativity.

ISO’s experts removed this concern by pointing out that standards about good governance are subjective but can still set out what’s required. For example, requiring a board committee to manage governance and a governance policy that deals with certain topics 

Those ISO experts also pointed out that there could even be a standard about writing poems. It could set set requirements, such as a sonnet is to have 14 lines with 10 syllables a line, and is to rhyme in one of the many patterns that are accepted as amounting to a rhyme. But it could be silent about the poem’s quality.

The Plain Language Standard developed through the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is based on an internationally agreed on definition of plain language. It was created using a well-regarded consensus model. Experts from 25 countries (representing 19 languages)  drafted and approved the standard.

For the first time, the world will have an agreed-on standard that tells people what plain language is and how to create plain language documents.

One benefit of an international standard is that everyone will be working from the same standard.

Until now, there have been no universally agreed-on standards for creating plain language documents or for determining whether something is plain. The ISO Plain Language Standard provides an agreed-on standard that tells people what plain language is and how to create plain language documents.

It summarizes the information you’ve likely been using and may provide ideas you are not aware of. This makes the standard a useful tool to quickly assess your work against. And it helps you make sure you haven’t forgotten any of the dozens of steps you need to go through when writing or editing a document.

Until now, there have been no universally agreed-on principles for creating plain language documents or for determining whether something is plain. What’s “widely recognized and adopted” often differs from person to person. The ISO Plain Language Standard provides an agreed-on standard that tells people what plain language is and how to create plain language documents.

ISO standards present information that the experts involved have agreed on. In ISO’s description of what standards are, it says that “Standards are the distilled wisdom of people with expertise in their subject matter and who know the needs of the organizations they represent.” Standards are just “a formula that describes the best way of doing something.”

It summarizes the information you’ve been using and perhaps provides information you are not aware of. This makes it a useful tool to quickly assess your work against, making sure you haven’t forgotten any of the dozens of steps you need to go through when writing or editing a document.

The existence of the standard does not mean ISO owns plain language. ISO standards simply present information that the experts involved have agreed on. In ISO’s description of what standards are, it says that “Standards are the distilled wisdom of people with expertise in their subject matter and who know the needs of the organizations they represent.” Standards are just “a formula that describes the best way of doing something.”

No one owns the information that is in an ISO standard.

No, you will not be required to use the standard. It is a voluntary standard that people can choose to use or not use. The only way you might be compelled to use the standard would be if your employer, or your client, required you to.

The standard can be applied by anyone who wants to use it. It is a voluntary standard, so there is no enforcement activity associated with it.

The standard can be applied by anyone who wants to use it. It is a voluntary standard, so there is no enforcement activity associated with it (for example, there is no standard police).

Anyone can buy and use the standard. You do not have to be certified against the standard to use it. Also, at this stage certification in relation to the standard is still just an idea being explored. Even if certification becomes available for the standard, you don’t have to go through the certification process (unless your employer or clients require you to).

The standard will help you to increase your credibility as a plain language practitioner. It will also help you build and enhance your brand.

The standard provides information on how to communicate effectively with intended readers. It might be useful for nonfiction aimed at children. Textbook publishers may or may not consider using the standard. It’s a voluntary standard, so using it or not would be a business decision for each publishing company to make.

The standard can be used for any document that the document’s author wants the document’s readers to understand. But it’s fair to say that someone writing an insurance policy or a standard letter from a government agency is more likely to benefit from using the standard than someone writing a novel or a love letter.

The standard does not address writing style issues, except for well known plain language techniques such as addressing readers directly and using words that the audience is familiar with.  

If you are already writing in plain language, then your current writing style will reflect these techniques. If you are not writing in plain language but you want to, then you will likely need to adjust your style as you learn and apply plain language techniques. This would be the case regardless of where you got those techniques from (for example, a colleague, the standard, books or the research the standard and the books are based on).

The standard doesn’t say that you shouldn’t use jargon. It says to use words that your audience is familiar with and will understand. If you are writing to colleagues and the jargon is familiar to them, then the jargon is plain language.

 The guidance in the standard includes many plain language practices that are not language related, such as focusing on what readers need to know, using a logical sequence, and using techniques to organize and design a document. These practices are independent of a particular group’s legitimate jargon.

The new ISO standard represents international best practice in plain language, having been developed by experts from around the world. While style guides do not usually have any overall principles contrary to those in the ISO standard, they can reflect an out-of-date and narrow view of what plain language means. For example, they often have plain language advice that does not match current research, advice and practice on plain language. These areas are much easier to see now that the ISO plain language standard has been drafted.

You can apply the ISO standard to comply with plain language principles but continue to use your style guide for other style questions.

ISO arranges for each of its standards to be reviewed at least every 5 years. The review is conducted by the experts on the ISO committee or working group responsible for the standard. Also that committee or working group can review the standard whenever it thinks a review is necessary.  

If you have suggested revisions to the standard, you can submit them to your national standard body.