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From: daveb@geac.UUCP (Dave Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: X.400 Mail Package
Message-ID: <804@geac.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Jun-87 13:32:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: geac.804
Posted: Thu Jun 18 13:32:31 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Jun-87 01:37:42 EDT
References: <289@rabbit1.UUCP> <220@idacrd.UUCP> <493@rlgvax.UUCP> <959@mtunb.ATT.COM> <1875@lsuc.UUCP>
Reply-To: daveb@geac.UUCP (Dave Brown)
Organization: GEAC Computers, Toronto, CANADA
Lines: 17

In article <1875@lsuc.UUCP> dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) writes:
>I don't expect non-lawyers to be able to read the Canadian
>Income Tax Act, although millions of people are affected by it.
>
>....  In the case of complex legislation such as
>amendments to the Income Tax Act, our Department of Finance
>publishes an explanation of the amendments in readable English.

    Another necessary (but not sufficent) technique comes from the world
of the law, too:  Preambles.  
    If one is drafting a very-high-level document (ie, one which may be
vague or overgeneral) you start with a description of what one means to
achieve.  Not how the law is supposed to work, but what its supposed to do.
Makes it easier to understand right from the beginning, and isn't binding
on anyone so that it doen't have to be written in standard-/legal-ese.

 --dave () brown