Reading time: 3-minutes, 11-seconds (717 words)
The more people can understand your research, the more likely they are to use it in their practice or cite it in their research. The key is to use plain language and create plain language summaries.
Editor Virginia St-Denis shared plain language techniques during her presentation to the International Forensic Psychiatry Lecture Series.
What Is Plain Language?
“A communication is in plain language if its wording, structure, and design are so clear that the intended audience can easily find what they need, understand what they find, and use that information.” — International Plain Language Federation
The International Organization for Standardization used that definition in its ISO plain language standard.
Why Are Plain Language Summaries Needed?
Plain language summaries clearly communicate the significance of research to a wide audience. This allows clinicians to use the research information to improve patient outcomes. It also allows patients and their families to better understand the information, improving discussions and decisions about their forensic mental health needs.
Using plain language in article titles and abstracts (not just plain language summaries) can increase your work’s research impact as multidisciplinary researchers can find, understand, and cite it in their work.
What Do Journals and Readers Need?
Journals have their own requirements for publishing plain language summaries. Some want a second abstract to publish with the original paper. Some want a full-size stand-alone article, which may be in a different journal than the original paper.
Plain language summaries are considered an acceptable secondary publication by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, which provides guidance. The editors of the original and secondary journals must approve the secondary publication. The secondary version must reflect the data and interpretations of the primary version and cite the primary version.
The Content Is What Readers Need
To meet your readers’ needs, you first need to determine who your readers are. They could include clinical and health care providers, legal and justice system professionals, policy- and decision-makers, and funding agencies.
Different types of plain language summaries are more appropriate for some audiences than others. They can include:
- Peer-reviewed journal elements and articles
- Conference posters and handouts
- Patient handouts
- Blog posts
- Policy and evidence briefs
How Do You Write Plain Language Summaries?
Readers Can Easily Find What They Need
Ms. St-Denis reviewed the logical flow of research papers compared with every other type of document. She discussed what journalists call the inverted pyramid. By focusing on the conclusions (including the policy implications or practical applications), busy readers can get the important information even if they only read the first few paragraphs. The discussion of the meaning of the results then backs up the conclusion. If mentioned, the methods and objectives are short and at the end.
Once you have determined who your readers are, what they need, and how you will structure the plain language summary, it’s time to write. However, Ms. St-Denis suggests trying not to “write.” Plain language tends to be more conversational than academic, unless academics are your audience.
Imagine how you would talk about your work with people in your primary and secondary audiences. Type the words you would say to them.
Organize what you’ve written to keep similar information together, remove repetition, and add descriptive headings and subheadings. This allows readers to skim the document to easily find what they need.
Order the headings to start with what most readers want to know first. Continue to go down the readers’ priority list.
Use short paragraphs to convey one thought at a time.
Readers Can Easily Understand What They Find
Use short sentences to convey one idea at a time to back up the thought of the paragraph. If there is a related point, write another sentence.
If a sentence is long, use bullets for lists or keep the subject and verb close together and at the start of the sentence.
Write in the active voice.
Read what you have typed out loud. Fix sentences that you stumble on. Where you gasp for air, break that sentence into two or three shorter sentences.
Readers Can Easily Use the Information
Before you start, ask one to three members of the target audience to provide input on their information needs. You are not the target audience, and your coworkers may not be. You can ask these same people to review a draft of your document at different stages and make suggestions.
Feedback from previous plain language summaries can help you improve future ones.
For more details, watch the recording of Ms. St-Denis’s October 23, 2025, lecture, “Harnessing the Power of Research Through Plain Language Summaries,” on our website.
Written by Virginia St-Denis.
