Introduction
In this and the next blog post, I’ll be writing about principles, methods, and tools for generating text. I’ll be focusing on writing a letter to someone to provide information about something. This could be a decision made by a government agency, a letter to bank customers with information about new interest rates, or other matters. This is actually quite general and is about how you can generate a text. Whether it’s in A4 format sent as a PDF or on paper, text in an email, text message, or something else doesn’t matter. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll use the example of sending a decision letter in PDF format to inform someone of a decision.
What I’m describing in this blog post isn’t something I came up with on my own. It largely consists of specific features developed within the “Fremtidens innkreving” program at the Norwegian Tax Administration, but it also includes general principles and methods. I’m writing about this to share something I think is smart that others might find useful.
Overall, what I’m describing will likely be most relevant to large organizations, but some aspects may be relevant even for small organizations.
Principles for written communication
Here, I describe some principles that underlie the methods and tools I will discuss later. Most of this stems from how the Norwegian Tax Administration wants to communicate in its letters and present itself to the public. I believe these are relatively general principles, which some will agree with and others may disagree with. Different organizations may have different needs and preferences, so you must assess which of these are relevant to you and your organization.
- The content must be accurate. It must be approved by subject matter experts, department heads, lawyers, or others.
- The content must be written in plain language so that all recipients can understand the message. It must be reviewed by someone with expertise in plain language.
- We must maintain consistent external communication to present a unified image:
Some content should be consistent across different subject areas. For example, if you have a section at the end of the letter that says, “Do you have any questions? Contact us this way: …,” it should be the same in all letters where you want to include such text.
The content should follow a consistent format across all departments. For example, decision letters from one part of the organization should resemble decision letters from another part of the organization. This could include, for example, the order of the sections “Relevant rules in this letter,” “Do you have any questions?” and “Signature.”
Letters with essentially the same content should be identical. If one case worker is handling a case and approves an application, and another case worker approves a different application, both approval letters should be identical (with the exception of details specific to each case).
- Some content must be presented in multiple language variants, such as Bokmål, Nynorsk, and English, because the audience requests it. In such cases, the texts must be reviewed or written by someone who is proficient in those language variants.
- Letters that can be generated automatically should be generated automatically. This saves time in case processing, ensures consistent letters, and allows us to send out letters more quickly when something happens. For example, if we have an automated case processing system, it’s helpful if you can send the decision letter immediately instead of having to ask a human case worker to review the case and write a letter conveying the outcome.
These principles may be waived when there are good reasons to do so.
One possible objection to the principles above is that they lead to the centralization of letters and text within the organization. This could result in it taking longer to create new letters or modify existing ones. It is true that this can happen, but it is not true that it has to happen. It must also be weighed against how important these principles are to the organization, so you may end up with varying degrees of centralization. We will now look at methods and tools that can be used in different ways depending on how much weight you place on the various needs and preferences mentioned above.
Phrase Bank
One way to meet many of the needs and preferences listed above is to have a place where all letter text is stored. I use the term “phrase library,” where a phrase is a piece of text. It can be a sentence or an entire paragraph, but is never shorter than a single sentence. A phrase will have a specific formatting and may include headings, bulleted lists, etc.
I assume that a letter written in Bokmål, Nynorsk, or English can be structured in the same way and translated paragraph by paragraph or even sentence by sentence. You have to consider the text as a whole, but I think it’s fair to say that a particular sentence or paragraph in Bokmål can be equivalent to a sentence or paragraph in English. There may be exceptions, and they can be handled, but this is the general rule.
We can create a simple phrase store like this:
Her har vi formatert teksten mellom <h2> og </h2> som overskrift nivå 2. Vi kunne også hatt fet, kursiv, ulike skriftstørrelser osv. Der det er rød skrift på entall/flertall som f.eks. du/dere kan styres av f.eks. om du skriver brev til en person eller en organisasjon. Feltene <forsinkelsesrentesats> og <rentebeløp> skal fylles ut med konkrete tall i hvert enkelt brev. Vi kaller slike felt «flettefelt», for å vise at her skal det flettes inn noe i setningene.
If you have such a list of texts, you can ask everyone who needs to write new texts to use them whenever possible. New letters can be written by selecting some existing texts and creating new ones. You’ll get more consistent texts and communication, and you can save time on drafting your own texts and getting them legally approved. You won’t have to translate the same text between Bokmål, Nynorsk, and English multiple times, because everyone can use the same translation.
Such a list can become confusing, so we can add some identifiers. The table below includes the columns “Level 1,” “Level 2,” and “Level 3”:
These identifiers can be used to filter and sort the list, and they can be used to create a letter template with various phrases. I’ll come back to this in more detail in my next blog post.
We may also want to include legal references in our letters. For example, whenever we write about late payment interest, we may want to refer to a specific section of a specific law. It is helpful if everyone does not have to figure out for themselves which section to cite, e.g., whether it is “the Late Payment Interest Act, Sections 14 and 15” or “the Late Payment Interest Act, Chapter 3.” It’s also helpful if everyone who needs to refer to this does so in the same way—meaning they use only one of the following: “our right to calculate late payment interest, see the Late Payment Interest Act §§ 14 and 15,” or “for information on why we calculate late payment interest, see §§ 14 and 15 of the Late Payment Interest Act.” If you set this up once and for all, you’ll have a consistent format, and all new users of the same text won’t have to worry about how it should look. One way to do this is to link specific legal references to specific phrases. I’m now removing Nynorsk and English so the table doesn’t get too wide.
This way, all letters containing the phrase “joint/late payment interest/text” will include the same legal reference. Such legal references can be listed in a separate section of the letter under a heading such as “Relevant provisions for this letter.”
To create a new letter, follow these steps:
- Find out what must be included in the letter to meet legal requirements.
- Think about what else you want to bring
- Think about the general structure of the letter, but don't get too bogged down in the details.
- Browse the phrase library to find suitable texts, especially under “Common.”
- If necessary, write any new text you need that isn't already in the phrase library.
- New text should be added to the phrase database. All content from every letter should be included there.
All of this can, in fact, be used to create letter templates that you distribute to case workers for manual letter writing, but a key benefit comes when it’s used to generate letters automatically. We’ll take a closer look at this in the next post on the professional blog. You can read Part 2 here.
