Business and industry today face an increasing need to make their documents both more readable and more understandable to a rapidly expanding audience. As of 1986, thirty states had plain language legislation controlling the language in contracts and/ or insurance policies, and more states have the adoption of similar legislation under consideration. There have even been suggestions that the federal government, along with state governments, adopt plain language policies for all of their publications, contracts, and legislation. The public outcry for understandable legal and technical documents–coupled with business and industry's expanding international markets, creating a need for multi-national operational, maintenance, and business documents–has produced a major problem for the persons responsible for writing those documents.