Make the Same Claim Easier to Understand
A style edit changes how a claim is expressed while preserving what it says. A technical edit changes the claim, its boundaries or its consequences. Some changes are both. Shorter wording is useful only if the reader can still understand the evidence and act on the right conditions.
An editor may spot a substantive error without being the person authorized or qualified to resolve it. Mark the issue and propose a correction with its basis. Do not treat a preference for confident prose as permission to remove uncertainty.
Test the Meaning, Not the Number of Words
The sentences below are fictional teaching examples. The suggested readings depend on the supplied context; a real document may define these terms differently.
| Original | Proposed Edit | What Changes |
|---|---|---|
| The team completed the review. | The review was completed by the team. | Mainly voice and emphasis; same actor and completion claim, if team has the same referent. |
| Of 60 participants assessed, 46 met the criterion. | Most participants met the criterion. | Removes the assessed denominator and could imply all participants were assessed. Keep the denominator when coverage matters. |
| Delivery is expected on May 8, subject to road access. | Delivery will arrive on May 8. | Converts an expectation with a condition into a promise. |
| Staff reported delays after the process changed. | The process change caused delays. | Turns reported sequence into a causal conclusion. |
| The owner may approve a change after review. | The owner must approve the change after review. | Changes discretion into an obligation. It also risks suggesting approval is inevitable. |
| A payment request was submitted. | Payment was approved. | Changes the stage of a decision; different evidence is required. |
| The records cover July through September. | The records cover this year. | Changes the period and makes the sentence date-dependent. |
| The clinics visited had medicine available on the visit date. | Clinics have reliable medicine supplies. | Extends selected observations to all clinics and sustained availability. |
The first pair may need only a style choice. The others require either rejecting the edit or returning to evidence and the responsible author. Even the first is not automatically harmless: if two teams are discussed, replacing a named team with the team could obscure responsibility.
Protect Five Boundaries
Who and what: Keep the population, unit and category. People, households, visits and service contacts are not interchangeable. Repeated attendance is not a count of unique participants.
When and where: Retain the observation period and coverage needed to interpret a claim. Moving a dated claim into a timeless summary can overstate what is known.
How certain: Words such as estimated, reported, unconfirmed and subject to may carry essential evidence limits. Replace vague uncertainty with a more precise limit when possible; do not simply delete it.
What follows from what: A plausible explanation, a contributor's view, an observed association and an established cause have different meanings. Smoother transitions cannot supply the missing argument.
Who is committed: Required, permitted, proposed, approved and completed mark different obligations or stages. For operative terms, consult the controlling document and qualified owner. This page does not interpret a real contract.
Work Through an Ambiguous Edit
Original: Three centers reported improved access. Proposed: Access improved at three centers.
The original tells us whose statement it is. The edit may read as the report author's verified conclusion. First ask what improved access means, what evidence exists and whether the report is deliberately presenting self-reports. If only center accounts are available, a clearer safe revision is: Staff at three centers said that access had improved; this review did not independently verify the change. If independent verification exists, the author can decide whether the stronger statement is justified and cite it.
An ambiguity is not resolved by counting a majority of reviewers who like one sentence. The relevant question is what the evidence and document purpose support.
Agree a Practical Review Route
Make routine spelling and formatting changes under the agreed editorial remit. For meaning changes, keep the original, proposal, reason and evidence locator visible. Ask the author or relevant technical owner to resolve a disputed population, calculation, cause or specialist term. Ask the contract/legal owner about consequential operative wording. Apply the decision consistently to tables, headings and the summary, then check the changed context.
Try the classification exercise, or use the worked guide to reconcile a multi-author report.
Source and Scope
CLEAR Global's plain-language introduction, one page, supports communication that readers can locate, understand and use. Plain-language advice is not authority to alter technical findings. The sentence pairs, five-boundary test and review route here are original OpenAid teaching material, not an externally certified editorial standard.