Plain language summary

[dmiddleton]

Per Suze Baird, 25 Jan 2024:

We are replacing the 500-char summary for the web sites with a ‘plain language summary’. Near the end of 2023, we introduced this for some reports (all AEBRs) for which the web summary did not really work and there was a request from further up the chain for there to be a web summary that provided a clear, readily understood summary for the general public, with the plan to extend the use of it to all AEBRS and FARs (please see attached example from one report). This plain language summary (PLS) is also included in the report – directly after the table of contents – with the report proper still starting with the exec Summ on page 1.

[dmiddleton]

Guidelines for the plain language summary are as follows:

1. Placement – within the report after the Table of Contents and before Executive Summary with the latter starting on page 1 on a page of its own (as it is now) – AND online, where the current 500-character summary goes.
2. Length: Short and concise, can use bullet points, no more than a sentence each
3. Target audience: Newspaper reading level (13 y), no jargon, or define if necessary
4. Content: Brief intro. of subject matter, what did we do, why did we do it, what did we learn. Stick to key results of interest.

[dmiddleton]

Suze provided the following specific example (I am unconvinced of the plain-ness of the language):

Plain language summary Ling (Genypterus blacodes) is an important commercial fish species in New Zealand middle depths waters and is caught mainly by bottom trawls, bottom longlines, and increasingly by potting.

This report summarises the 2023 stock assessment of one of the five main ling stocks managed under the Quota Management System: the ling stock off the west coast of the South Island (LIN 7WC).

A stock assessment model was carried out, based on commercial catches, information from the west coast South Island Tangaroa trawl survey biomass series, the commercial longline standardised catch per unit effort (CPUE) from 1991, and the commercial trawl standardised CPUE from 1997.

The initial spawning stock biomass (B _0) for both the base case model was estimated to be about 62 200 t and stock status in 2023 was estimated as 51% B _0 . An investigative model run provided a slightly lower initial biomass and stock status in 2023 of 52%.

Five-year projections were done using the base case model, resampling recruitment from the entire range of the model, and assuming future annual catch equal to the average catch in 2020–2022. Projected stock status in 2028 was expected to be 52% of B _0.

The probability that the stock status in 2028 will be above 40% B _0 was 97%, and that of being less than 20%, was zero. This assessment was used to inform Fisheries New Zealand’s management of this ling stock.

[dmiddleton]

My testing indicates that the correct formatting and placement cannot be achieved with the current templates. As a result, I think we need to add a \plainlanguagesummary command

[dmiddleton]

The \plainlanguagesummary command is implemented in v1.57. Clarification has been sought from Fisheries New Zealand around whether the Plain language summary should appear on a right hand page (as per FAR 2024/01) or without worrying about left and right pages anymore (as per AEBR 325).

[dmiddleton]

SB indicates: "It should be on the even page directly after the ToC"

Updated 1.57 so that the PLS follows the ToC (usually an even page, unless the ToC spans two pages) but with the Executive Summary (numbered page 1) always on an odd (right hand) page

[dmiddleton]

SB has approved layout