The Plain Language Summary Playbook

The Plain Language Summary (PLS) Playbook is a practical working tool for the people who actually write and review PLS: medical writers, publication managers, regulatory writers, patient engagement leads, students, postdocs, and study teams across industry and academia.

What's inside:

• Five core principles that govern every credible PLS
• "Why" / "What" / "So What" structural template with a fully worked example
• Jargon shortlist of 30 common terms with plain language replacements
• Journal and regulator policy table
• A risk communication guide covering three traps that get PLS rejected
• Side-by-side before/after examples showing the principles applied
• Eight LLM-agnostic prompts for drafting, simplifying, fact-checking, jargon swaps, audience flexing, risk-framing audits, and pre-submission QC
• A pre-publication QC checklist to run before any PLS leaves your desk

Designed as a drafting and QC aid, the playbook stands on its own without any AI tool and complements your normal medical, legal, and regulatory review process.

Format: PDF, instant digital download.

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Recommended tool: Audio & translation for wider reach

Once your plain language summary is written, it helps to make it accessible to more people. We use ElevenLabs to narrate summaries as audio and translate them into other languages - a useful companion to the accessibility goals at the heart of this playbook.

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