 Our letter of February 12, 1995 informed you that service connection could not be allowed for your chronic pain in the neck. Evidence of the current status of a disability for which service connection has been denied is not new and material evidence. Hey, Greg, what's up? Hey, how's it going? Yeah, how you been? All right. What would you do to yourself? Oh, I busted it up pretty bad when I was in Vietnam. Now I'm standing on it all the time at work and it's acting up. Listen, are you still with the VA? Yeah. Well, maybe you can help me out. Sure. I sent them a letter explaining what happened to my knee trying to get some more money and I sent them some of my records and they sent me a letter back saying I needed to send new and material evidence. What is new and material evidence? Okay, you're probably seeing a doctor regularly for the knee, right? Yeah. And you've sent them medical records that they've reviewed, you need to send them copies of your most recent medical files. And don't forget to put your VA file number on the record so they can match them up with your file. Well, why don't you see all that in the first place? I don't know, man. It's one of those things. Look, I was just thinking... Hi, my name is Melody Mercer and I'm an insurance specialist in the VA Insurance Center in Philadelphia. For the past several years, I've been involved in the Reader-Focused Writing Initiative, both locally in my office and nationally as part of the implementation team that put the Reader-Focused Writing Initiative together. In the future, I'll be one of several instructors who will be teaching the satellite training for the Reader-Focused Writing Tools course that many of you will be taking. And now, I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Kevin Dungy. For years, I've been working with federal agencies and businesses to help improve their writing. Drawing on that experience, I've been working very closely with the Reader-Focused Writing Implementation Team to produce and design Reader-Focused Writing curriculum. Since Kevin and I have been so involved with the training, it's exciting for us to bring you this videotape to tell you more about the Reader-Focused Writing Initiative. We never speak or write to our friends in bureaucratic language, but at work, even good writers sometimes find themselves sending out letters that are hard to understand. And we don't always provide all the information a veteran might need. You know, maybe we do it out of habit. Certain bureaucratic words and phrases seem to be ingrained in our brains. They're certainly ingrained in our culture here at VA. Sometimes, they seem like the only way to explain the official procedures we write about. Or maybe we don't have the time to fully answer all the questions, including the ones our clients may not know to ask. They come to us with important personal questions about things that affect their lives and those of their families, insurance, disability benefits, and so on. Sometimes, they may not know the right questions to ask, but they do know that they need all the pertinent information that we can provide. Let's face it, it takes a little more time to really think about the issues they're confronting. It's quicker and easier to hit the print key and release a pattern letter. But to our clients, there's nothing quick or easy about it. They're busy people like we are, and they don't have the time to struggle through unintelligible techno-speak. I think forbearance is probably more prevalent to the mortgage side. That's a claim that has plenty of new and material evidence. I'll go along with what he said. It is an item which goes with vocational rehab. I haven't got the foggy snowshoes. This is really insane. Well, I'm just taking guesses. Something like a retirement home or a policy. When you put those three together, I don't have a clue. How am I doing it? Me neither. We don't talk in terms like that. And I would tell the people in the VA, because you understand it, there's no excuse. And you got to talk plain English to me. It doesn't have to be this difficult. There's a better way. It's called reader-focused writing. Writing is at the heart of what we do at the Department of Veterans Affairs. It is the main way we communicate. So how well we write determines how well we communicate with our clients and colleagues. As the name implies, reader-focused writing looks at the needs of the reader. RFW is based on what we know about how readers scan and process information on the printed page. That means we're devoted to understanding how words appear on the page, the length of sentences, the content of those sentences, and whether they're appropriate for our audience. In addition, there's research that shows that readers are asking themselves a series of questions as they scan the page and read segments of the printed matter on that page. That means we have to understand that readers are in fact very goal-oriented. They are trying to achieve tasks that the information on the page will help them do. And once that we understand that, we understand how to trim and shape the information in order to answer those questions. The principles behind RFW come out of many different fields, all of them research-rich. We draw upon technical communication, certainly, but also upon cognitive psychology, linguistics, readability, organizational communication, speech act, all of these fields, even computer science, they all contribute to the principles behind technical communication. Some people believe that reader-focused writing is what they call dumbing down. And I think through taking the course, many people will understand that reader-focused writing is a technique to enable us to write our correspondence or prepare our documents in a format and a style that is understandable to the recipient. The business community has been using reader-focused writing for some time. Bank statements, instructions, even recipes are all more reader-friendly than they used to be. But it is new to us. It's part of the VA-wide initiative to help us meet our customers' needs. It's a result of the efforts and requests of many people, from the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to employees like yourselves, to the veterans who receive the benefits. In my current position, one of my responsibilities is to oversee the work of the Executive Communications Office so that I probably see the bulk of communications and correspondence that comes into BBA and that goes out from headquarters to various parts of the world. And I think not only is a reader-focused writing just as applicable, I think in some ways it should be more applicable. We're writing to a vast array of people, some of whom are congressmen, senators, veteran service organizations, representatives, that doesn't alleviate us of the responsibility of being clear, focused and concise in our writing, as well as communicating through the regulations our care and concern for those whom we serve. It will take some time, but we're more than willing to invest the time that it will take. Every time someone learns the new reader-focused writing skills and the techniques, we become that much stronger and that much faster. Reader-focused writing is a technique that's different from what we're used to doing and it may take some time for people to feel comfortable with it. But I think once everyone is trained and they use the technique, both VBA and the veterans that we serve will benefit from it. Here's a good example of a reader-focused letter. You'll see right away that this letter is brief and concise, not wordy. In fact, there's plenty of white space on the page which signals your brain this is not going to be a difficult read. Headings draw your eye to the important points and bold print helps out too. Everyday language gives this letter a less formal, more personal feeling. These are the same kinds of words you'd use if you were telling this to someone instead of writing it. But even more important than the format and words is the thought that goes into a reader-focused writing letter. That means that before we begin to write, we have to think through what we want to say. We have to ask ourselves, how can I best say this so it tells the reader all they need to know, clearly and plainly? Are my explanations simple and straightforward? Is the letter specific to the issue at hand? Veterans shouldn't have to reread our letters or find a lawyer to translate them. One technique that helps is to group or chunk related information together in manageable pieces so readers find all they need to know about a given topic in one place. They don't have to search for bits and pieces in unrelated paragraphs. Another technique is to make sure there's a solid logic to the flow of information. This letter is a good example. It starts by telling the reader what prompted the letter, then it describes the VRNC program, and then it clearly explains what the reader should do to make a counseling appointment. It's well thought out. Research shows that this type of thoughtfulness in organization can increase readability by 85 to 90%. Good formatting is important, but it only counts for 10 to 15% of a letter's readability. The key is to use them both, because by now you know the bottom line. Do everything you can to help the reader. Eventually, reader focused writing will touch everyone here at VA. Reader focused writing is a priority issue. We really need to begin right away. I know we already have made some initial steps, but we really need to accelerate the effort and make sure we get reader focused writing thoroughly embedded in the culture of VBA. That becomes the norm, not just for letters that we send to veterans and their family members, but for letters or any type of correspondence that we use to communicate, whether it's circulars, manuals, letters to congressmen, it doesn't matter. We really need to focus on trying to get information out simply. The video tape that you're watching is part of the RFW orientation course. It will be shown to all VBA employees to let them know the importance of the Reader Focused Writing Initiative. Shortly, many of you will be going into the Reader Focused Writing Tools course. This course will be given to everyone who writes in VBA, which is about 90% of the employees. The course was fun. There's a lot of interaction in it, and I do believe that once people take the course, they'll see the benefits. And this course is tied in with the next course, which is the Collaborative Writing Course. That will only be given to about 20% of the employees who will be trained to write in teams. These teams will rewrite existing pattern letters. So as you can see, the Tier 2 RFW Tools course and the Tier 3 Collaborative Writing Course are closely linked together because the pattern letters have to match with the material you are adding on. Tier 4 courses will only be given to 1 to 2% of the employees, those writing reference materials, and those designing forms. Although few of you will go through the reference writing course, this is where most of you will benefit directly as a customer. Because the reference material that you're now using, such as manuals and training guides, will be much easier to follow. Redesigning our forms also gives us a great benefit because veterans and their families will be able to fill out the forms more easily and give us more complete information. We're probably tackling the most difficult task of all right now. We're trying to write our own regulations in plain English. I feel that not only can this be done, it'll also be a help for those who are in the business of quoting our regulations or what our regulations mean to third parties. And I believe that if we can do it with regulations, we should be able to do it with anything that we publish in VBA. Even as this training is going on, teams of collaborative writers have already begun rewriting the documents we commonly use. Tell us what it says to you. They're now being field tested in protocol interviews, where veterans evaluate them to make sure they find them as clear and easy to understand, as the writers intended. Administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs. I would need to read that two or three more times. It's a really long and awkward sentence. It says that it comes from an accredited organization, accredited by who I'm not sure, so I think I would contact the VA and let them either refer me or... Reader-focused writing is already getting good reviews from people using it at our regional offices. We have identified reader-focused writing as a priority issue within the Veterans Benefits Administration. When I was a trainee adjudicator, I fell in love with the word promulgate. And I used to use it all the time in letters to veterans. Probably one in ten might actually have understood what I was trying to say. We need to get away from that kind of thing. We need to learn to speak and communicate in a language that the people we're writing to can understand. And one of the difficulties I have seen consistently is our ability to communicate to people in an open, honest, frank, and caring way. Our emphasis in the past has tended to be on the statutory aspects of that communication, which, while important, often confuses the reader and doesn't actually get after the kind of empathy or concern or care we should be about in responding to people who've written to us with a problem or have written to us because they don't understand why we can't do something they've asked us to do. We've done a lot of protocol tests of reader-focused writing letters, and one thing that we're finding out that a lot of veterans like is the outline, structure, and format of the letters. They've used the word outline because the way the letter is laid out and the formatting organization helps them to find what they need to know quickly. It will continue to be a success only if each one of us contributes. We'll all need to break some old habits. We have to anticipate what our readers need to know and how we can best tell them before we send out letters. We have to be willing to think readers and not just push buttons. If we do this, we'll find that the benefits are very real. For one thing, reader-focused writing improves client relations. Veterans respond more quickly and accurately to correspondence they can actually understand, and they report a greater satisfaction with the VA, which is good for our public image. And there are some benefits for us at VA, too. For one thing, our manuals will be a lot less frustrating to read once they're rewritten using reader-focused writing. And we'll spend less time writing follow-up letters and explaining things on the phone to clarify what we meant to say in the first place, so it will boost productivity. And we can take pride in knowing we've been more responsive to our clients and that we've treated them with concern and respect. When we use reader-focused writing, we know we've done the best job that we could, and that's a reward in itself. Reader-focused writing fits very well with the NPR's efforts to reinvent government. The NPR efforts are all about trying to make things better, cheaper and faster for taxpayers and for customers. I think reader-focused writing does that precisely. It will communicate clearly. It will allow people to understand the first time they read something from us and make us more efficient in the process.