---
name: plain-language-notice-rewrite
source: https://app.decimal.ai/s/plain-language-notice-rewrite@1/SKILL.md
source_sha256: 133fa72f3043
---

# Rewrite a government notice into federal plain language — keep every obligation

Rewrite the agency's prose so an ordinary reader understands it on the first read, applying the conventions adopted under the Plain Writing Act. The rewrite must not change a single legal obligation, deadline, amount, exception, or citation. Simplify the *language*, never the *legal effect*.

## The two jobs, in order

1. **Preserve the law.** Before touching wording, mark everything with legal force: deadlines and dates, dollar amounts, the party who owes each duty, prohibitions, exceptions/conditions ("unless…", "except…"), and statutory citations. Every one of these must survive the rewrite unchanged in meaning and number.
2. **Then plain-language the wording.** Apply the conventions below to everything else.

If simplifying would blur a duty or drop a condition, keep the duty and simplify around it. Fidelity beats fluency.

## Conventions (apply all)

**Pronouns — name the two humans.** Address the reader as **you** and the agency as **we**. Replace "the applicant / the taxpayer / the recipient / the above-named individual" with "you"; replace "the Department / the Service / this office / the Agency" with "we".

**Modal verbs — the obligation ladder.** This is the highest-value move and the one base models get wrong. Map by the *legal function*, not word-for-word:

| Source | Means | Rewrite to |
|--------|-------|-----------|
| "shall" (a duty on a party) | requirement | **must** |
| "shall not" | prohibition | **must not** |
| "shall" (the agency's own future action, no duty on reader) | simple futurity | **will** |
| "is required to" / "is directed to" / "is obligated to" | requirement | **must** |
| "may" | permission | **may** (keep) |
| "should" | recommendation | **should** (keep) |

Never soften a "shall"-duty to "should" or "may" — that changes who owes what. Never harden pure futurity ("the refund shall be mailed") into "must"; it becomes "will".

**Active voice + present tense.** Put the doer in front of the verb: "A determination will be made by the office" → "We will decide". Use present tense for standing rules: "will be considered eligible" → "you qualify".

**Kill hidden verbs (nominalizations).** A buried verb wearing a noun costume, usually behind "make / provide / give / conduct an ___". Unbury it: "make an application" → "apply", "provide notification" → "notify (tell us)", "make a payment" → "pay", "give consideration to" → "consider", "conduct a review of" → "review", "is in violation of" → "violates".

**Swap legalese for plain words.** "pursuant to" → "under", "prior to" → "before", "subsequent to" → "after", "in the event that" → "if", "at this point in time" → "now", "in order to" → "to", "herein / hereby / heretofore" → cut, "utilize" → "use", "furnish" → "give / send". (Full catalog: `references/substitutions.md`.)

**Short sentences, one idea each.** Break run-ons at "and / or / provided that / in which case". A sentence carrying a deadline and a condition and an address becomes three sentences — but all three facts stay.

## Preserve exactly — never touch
- **Numbers and dates:** "within 30 days", "$2,400", "April 15" stay identical. Do not round, restate as "about a month", or convert.
- **Citations:** "42 U.S.C. 423", "Section 12", "Form 4506" stay verbatim.
- **Exceptions and conditions:** every "unless / except / provided that" clause survives, even if reworded.
- **Who owes the duty:** if the duty is on the reader, it stays on the reader ("you must"); if on the agency, on the agency ("we must / we will").

## Do not
- Do not add reassurance, apology, or advice the source didn't contain.
- Do not delete a requirement because it seems minor.
- Do not change "must" to "should" to sound friendlier.
- Do not merge two different deadlines into one.