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Quarterly Reporting

The Governor expects each agency to report on the progress and effectiveness of their Plain Talk efforts. At Ecology, each program will do this through their quarterly performance measure report.

Track your rewrites for each quarter

For every rewrite you count in your quarterly report, you must save the before and after version in the x: drive. If the document is new consider the first draft as the before version.

To save your documents go to:

X://Plain Talk/Plain Talk Program Teams Befores and Afters

1. Open the file for your program.
2. Open the file for the current quarter.
3. Save the before and after version in the folder.

Provide data to performance measure staff

Look at the documents saved in the x: drive and collect the information below:

Measure 1: Number of documents

Measure 2: Total number of pages:

• Existing documents: Use the number of pages in the original.
• New documents: Use the number of pages in the final.

Measure 3: Effectiveness of your rewrites (quantified is preferred).
How you measure the effectiveness of a rewrite will depend on what document you work on. Each program must decide what measure will show the effectiveness of a given rewrite. There are several ways you can approach this:

• Record your baseline and measure again after you use the document.
• Use data from databases to capture a before and after measure related to your document.
• Conduct a usability tests, surveys, focus groups, etc. to show the effectiveness of the rewrite.

Making Data Meaningful

Making Data Meaningful was prepared within the framework of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Work Session on Statistical Dissemination and Communication. It is intended as a practical tool to help managers, statisticians and media relations officers use text, tables, graphics and other information to bring statistics to life using effective writing techniques. It contains suggestions, guidelines and examples – but not golden rules. This publication recognizes that there are many practical and cultural differences among statistical offices, and that approaches vary from country to country.