Rewrite highlights | Words & Beyond

Highlights of our document rewriting work include:

Banking Code for the Australian Banking Association;
plain-language industrial relations awards for the Fair Work Commission;
the ANZ Bank Limited Annual Report 2017 ― major review and new approach;
Working with the Australian Stock Exchange's team that produced the ASX's plain-language Listing Rules;
Working with Phil Knight (Canada) and Professor Joseph Kimble (USA) to produce a demonstration rewrite of South Africa's Human Rights Commission Bill for South Africa's Minister of Justice;
Working on the team that created AMP's Proposal to Demutualise: Explanatory Memorandum and listing prospectus. The AMP Board sent the Explanatory Memorandum to the nearly two million members of the AMP Society to help them decide how to vote on whether AMP should demutualise. The Explanatory Memorandum is ― still ― widely regarded as the international benchmark document of its type.

Ken Morris, (the then President of Siegal and Gale, the New York-based international design and document simplification specialists) said of the documents

"I thought the document was one of the finest pieces of simplicifaiton that I've seen. . . . Hopefully it will prove an inspiration for companies here."

Letter to Christopher Balmford, 27 October 1997

Insurance documents

We have rewritten documents for several insurers, including:

insurance policies
brochures
standard letters
annual statements
welcome packs sent to new customers
forms and internal product updates

A Canadian report said of some of the policies:

... The Australian Mutual Provident Society (AMP) has become an industry leader in research, development and testing of insurance documents for consumers. In language, organization and design, the policies are outstanding models of good communication practice. Consumers' Association of Canada, Saskatchewan Plain Language Insurance Policies, Final Report, April 1997, prepared by Gale Barnes Consulting, page 50