Comments:

This contract provision is longwinded and wordy because its author was trying to be precise. However, the same level of precision can be achieved without the confusion and repetetiveness of the original. For instance, notice how the original says at each step that the shareholder must hold shares in accordance with the WBCA. By pulling the WBCA clause out front and making clear that its scope includes all three conditions listed, the listing itself becomes clearer. The original also fails to make clear the logical relations among its steps, using the imperative "shall" where the intent is to conditionally link several clauses as If—Then statements. The necessary and sufficient conditions for payment are further obscured by using logically problematic phrases such as "provided, however," which can be interpreted either as meaning that if the latter clause holds, then the former does, or as meaning that the former holds if and only if the latter does. The difference here is between giving a non-exhaustive versus an exhaustive list of cases where the shareholder forfeits the right to appraisal!

These changes are not simply a matter of eloquence, but of logical accuracy. Once they are made, then one can make the changes necessary to be clear to the document's reader. The end result is a revised provision that is 1/3 shorter than the original — and more precise.

Comments:

In this case, the original is not too long, simply too confusing. The entire provision is one sentence, making it very hard to follow the logical connections between steps and hard to understand what are actually some conceptually easy conditions on how the trust money should be dispersed. There is no need for such confusion, given that the provision amounts to a decision tree that tells how the money in trust should be dispersed for those over and under a certain age, and for beneficiaries with and without children. What readers of the document need to know is what happens if:

(1) any beneficiary dies before a certain age, either with or without descendants,
(2) any beneficiary is under a certain age,
(3) there is no living beneficiary
(4) there are no descendants of any beneficiary

By breaking these apart into separate sentences, the meaning of the provision becomes clear. And when it's clear, it's obvious that there are some mistakes in it. For instance, the fourth clause reads "if no beneficiary is not then living" where the intent is obviously to explain what happens when there is no living beneficiary. The double negative here muddies the meaning and contributes to the overall confusion in the provision. There is also an overuse of imperatives where simple statements of fact suffice. An imperative can be useful to direct what happens if certain conditions hold, as in the clause concerning no living beneficiary. However, it is nonsensical when used as a description of fact, as in the clause directing that someone shall be below a certain age when the point of the provision is to specify what happens to the trust if someone is below a certain age.

Clarifying confusing langauge does not always result in a shorter document. Sometimes a document is hard to understand because it is too terse, filled with technical jargon where plain language explanation is clearer. But plain language can be as precise as technical jargon without being wordy. The changes here make this trust provision easier to understand without adding to its length — enabling one to focus on the document's intended meaning.

Comments:

This disclosure suffers from a number of common problems. First, in attempting to be precise it goes overboard in detail. But instead of making the Plan clearer, this additional detail only serves to confuse the reader more. In order to be clear and precise, the long, clause-laden sentences must be broken up; only then can the reader process each bit of information conveyed. Notice that the entire paragraph only contains 3 sentences, the first of which is 10 lines long! Breaking this into separate sentences, beginning with a clear statement of what is being proposed, makes clearer what the reader is supposed to take away from this disclosure. Verbs, rather than nouns, help here. Notice that when a noun is used instead of a verb, there is a proliferation of prepositions, adding to the overall muddy feel of the disclosure. Once the reader knows what the main point is, then the disclosure should state once clearly the conditions of the Plan. The disclosure also makes the common mistake of adding numerous clauses designed to cover all possible contingencies. However, repeating the conditions several times adds nothing; it just makes the reader think that something different is being said each time. Similarly, there is no need to spell out separately all possible combinations of shares/warrants. The point, after all, is that the total of these cannot exceed a specified amount. Simply making that clear eliminates the need for the detailed summary of all contingencies.

This sample thus shows how insecurity about the logical force of what one is saying can hurt the clarity with which one says it. If we attend to the logical relations between the parts of the disclosure, we can see that much of the confusing, extraneous material can be eliminated, resulting in a plain language document that is both clear and concise.