Could You Be Clearer? An Examination of the Multiple Perspectives of Clarity

Despite the unanimity of opinion on clarity, few experts recognize the important, complex factors that affect readers and writers' perceptions of clarity. This chapter examines three of the most important such factors: precision, document accessibility, and corporate language context. Each factor is defined and examined in terms of its influence on clarity. The result is a better understanding of the multiple factors we need to consider before we pass judgment on a document's clarity. Accessibility involves making information available to a broad array of readers‐technical elite, and administrative, managerial, and bureaucratic masses. Writers who understand corporate language context know that in order to function they must use accepted corporate language patterns in their day‐to‐day activities.