European elections in plain language
By: Marina de Horn, editor-in-chief of the Felix products and services catalog
The European elections are coming up again. And we are all busy with that at work. It's quite a challenge: getting all the rooms ready, ordering all the paperwork and distributing it to all those locations, and calling on residents to help staff all the polling stations.
In addition, we also have to inform residents that elections are being held on June 6. A Facebook post by a resident of Gouda (I live in Gouda): "Nice. As deputy chair, I will be welcoming residents of #korteAkkeren to the Westerkerk on June 6 to cast their votes," raised quite a few questions in the comments:
- "What can we vote on?"
- Is this about the parking policy in the neighborhood?
- "What's happening on June 6?"
Apparently, these European elections are not yet very much alive, because even asking around in my circle of friends and acquaintances did not yield many good answers. There is work to be done, including updating the texts on the website.
Election newspaper
The Prodemos Foundation has published an election newspaper in plain language, , in collaboration with the Lezen & Schrijven Foundation and the ABC Foundation. Highly recommended! Available in many libraries and also interesting for yourself. It explains clearly what the European elections entail. The entire voting procedure is also described in understandable language. In short: request a copy (via the link above). It is also useful for inspiration for your own (web) text. And you can make room for the other 19 copies in the public area.
Free check and tips
Send your (web) text about the European elections (maximum 3 A4 pages, with a font size of at least 10 points) to marina.dehorn@shift2.nl.
I will then run your text through our "car wash" and return it to you. You will then know your score at B1 level (according to our WizeNote tool), and I will give you three insights and/or tips so that you can immediately make your next text clearer.
