The Underdog of Writing Styles

By Tiffany Yang

After learning the strategies and devices used within official style, I learned about plain style and how they are the opposite of each other. This gave me the misconception that plain style translates to unprofessional, unreliable, non-educational, and unintelligent forms of writing. To dig deeper, I analyzed an article that utilized plain style and detected the strategies used to compare how this prose style is used, the context of this article, and how it can affect the way it is used in spheres of human activity. The article chosen was published by a website called Healthline. Their main goal is to set readers and viewers on a journey to health and wellness. They claim to have the best interests concerning wellbeing, and cutting through all the confusion with straightforward, expert-reviewed, person-first experiences – all designed to help viewers make the best decisions for themselves. They have several topics ranging from nutrition, sleep, mental health, fitness, and product reviews, etc. My article talks about haircare, specifically the effectiveness of hair vitamins. The article explains what exactly hair vitamins are, nutrients they provide, if they work, and their recommendations. This article was found on Google, with a quick word search of “Do hair vitamins work?” and it was one of the first five articles that appeared. This shows that the article is easily accessible to the public and very inclusive. 

The author of this article is Katey Davidson. She is a Canadian registered dietitian and certified personal trainer. She graduated with a master's in science in foods and nutrition from Western University. She specializes in women's nutrition and fitness, with a focus on sustainable, long-term behavioral change. In addition, she teaches at the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences at Brescia University College, an affiliate of Western University. She has authored several articles for Healthline on weight loss, veganism, product-reviews, and more.

 Davidson uses a lot of obvious plain styles in her article about hair vitamins. After reading what Healthline's purpose is, it makes sense as to why they use plain style in their writing. Their website description clearly states that they want to cut through all the confusion and provide expert answers and information, in a straightforward way. This is premature evidence that plain style is present. To look closer at plain style strategies I will share the ones found within the excerpt I have examined but let us first discuss the readability statistics of this article. 

To gather accurate numbers for the statistics, an excerpt which I believe was an accurate representation of this article’s writing was selected to calculate. The results were slightly shocking because plain styles are meant to have low Gunning Fog Indexes and high Flesch Reading Eases, but in this case the Gunning Fog Index was 13.27 which means in order to read and comprehend this article, the individual would need to have at least 13 years of formal education. I was expecting this number to be lower considering the simplicity of the writing but after taking into consideration that Healthline still is a source that provides information and expert answers, it makes sense that the Gunning Fog Index is around, what would be considered, a high school graduate. As for the Flesch Reading Ease, I was expecting this number to be very high because to me this article was easy to read but I was surprised to see a reading ease of 39.86. Although this is not low, it is also not as high as I expected. These results do not fit what is expected of plain style writing, so let us now identify the strategies of plain style Davidson used.

The first strategy Davidson used is a clear active voice. An example within the excerpt is when Davidson states, “When your body is functioning well, it can better support nonessential functions like growing healthy hair.” This is an active voice because this statement focuses on the subject and then what the subject is doing, rather than the subject being acted upon by the verb. A passive example of this exact statement would be written like this: “Growing healthy hair is a nonessential function that can be better supported by a well-functioning body.” This is the opposite of plain style and the tone it presents is much more formal. This led me to identify the next strategy, which is the level of formality Davidson chose. 

Plain style often uses low levels of formality, taking into consideration all audiences and open accessibility. A first-person perspective would be the lowest level of formality, a second person perspective would be next, and the third-person perspective would be the highest level of formality. Davidson having written the article in second person perspective makes the article less intimidating and does not obscure readers from understanding her article. The low level of formality is not the only strategy that helps readers understand her writing. It is also accompanied by the strategy of providing sentences that are noncomplex. 

Throughout this article Davidson refrains from using jargon and euphemism, in turn avoiding the probable cause of creating unnecessary verbose and complex sentences. The idea around plain style is to have short, noncomplex sentences that typically have one or minimal ideas within each sentence. There is no jargon that would obscure readers and no euphemism to force readers to read in formal tones. Having put all the strategies mentioned together, they all work in favor of the same goal and purpose: to relay information in a simple manner so that the article can have a large openness of accessibility, which can then be read by various groups of audiences, and circuit through different spheres of human activity. 

After identifying all the strategies and how they play a role within plain style, let us now discuss context versus text. I had mentioned earlier that this website (Healthline) had a goal of providing viewers and readers with quick, easily understood, expert answers and information by cutting through all the confusion. It seems like Healthline is reciting exactly what plain style. They are an accessible website open to whoever has internet access and in being so accessible, their audience can be determined as the general public. Based on this context, I argue that plain style is very appropriate and fitting. When something is as accessible as this article on Healthline, the goal should be to appeal to a wide range of audiences, wide range of purposes and goals, because the spheres of human activity here can vary. Therefore, I believe Healthline chose to write in plain style to reach the maximum number of readers and viewers. Now we should consider different contexts and the counterargument that plain style is not fitting or does not affect the spheres of human activity. Hypothetically, what if the context of this article was the exact opposite? Such as, it had extremely limited accessibility through the means of a paid subscription, or the need for a specific position/status/certification of some type (student, professor, scientist, etc.). In this scenario, would plain style still be fitting or does the prose style have an impact on this different context? I would argue that plain style would still be appropriate because although the context is different, Davidsons article still serves it purpose of presenting knowledge and information. The different context would change accessibility, audiences, and how this article would circuit, but the purpose of the article remains the same. This article still provides the audience with quick and simple expert answers, which means the spheres of human activity would still be similar, Healthline provides their information to be applied and used as knowledge.

In conclusion, I do not believe there is a situation where plain style would not be appropriate. Although some contextual factors may change, the overall purpose remains no matter the context. Plain style does not translate to unprofessional, unreliable, non-educational, or unintelligent. Text can still relay amazing information, answers and expertise while using plain style. Plain style simply means one's writing means exactly what they say/write. There are minimal to zero special strategies that could cause obscurities. Therefore, the prose style of plain may sometimes affect the context but does not change the purpose or sphere of human activities.