We presented the final “No Gobbledygook” awards Friday December 22, 2000.  There has been a plain language prize every month since the award was established in June 1998 for a total of 27 awards. Then Vice President Gore created the award to recognize federal employees who use plain language in innovative ways.  We look forward to developing a new award under the new administration!

Winners of the plain language prize over the last seven months of the program include:

• July : The National Institutes of Health’s Dr. Alexa McCray who developed clinicaltrials.gov, a Web site that provides information on the status of clinical research studies.
• August : Anne Cyr of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, who rewrote a lengthy poster to clearly inform employees of their right to know if their employer had committed OSHA violations.
• September : Steven Griswold, David Neil, Lauren Mason and Andrea Macri of the Board of Immigration Appeals within the Department of Justice. Griswold and his partners rewrote a confusing manual describing conditions under which immigrants can be deported in a succinct question-and-answer format.
• October : The Food and Drug Administration’s Naomi Kulakow and Christine Lewis who wrote a pamphlet describing how to read and use the nutrition facts printed on food labels. This marks FDA’s fourth “No Gobbledygook” prize – the most of any federal agency.
• November : Laura Fulmer, Helen Kirkman, Vikki Vrooman, James Cesarano, John Moro and Melodee Mercer of the Internal Revenue Service. These foes of gobbledygook rewrote a form telling taxpayers how to obtain a refund check.
• December : The Federal Aviation Administration’s Don Byrne and Linda Walker, who reformatted an airworthiness directive to clearly explain potential safety hazards on a type of airplane.
• January 2001 : Susan Hollman and Valerie Perkins of the Health Care Financing Administration, who wrote a handbook entitled “Medicare and You” that clearly explained Medicare benefits.