A maintenance warning moved first

Before

Prior to the commencement of the inspection procedure, it is necessary for the technician to ensure that the hydraulic pressure has been fully released and that the appropriate safety locks have been installed, failing which serious injury could potentially be sustained due to unexpected actuator movement.

One sentence, 46 words. The warning is at the end, after the instructions it protects. Three passive constructions hide who does what. "Prior to the commencement of" is "before." The STE lab flags it eight times.

After

WARNING: THE ACTUATOR CAN MOVE SUDDENLY AND CAUSE INJURY. RELEASE THE HYDRAULIC PRESSURE BEFORE YOU DO THE INSPECTION.

1. Release the hydraulic pressure.
2. Install the safety locks.
3. Make sure that the pressure gauge shows zero.
4. Do the inspection.

Zero flags. Longest sentence, nine words.

What changed, and which rule asked for it

• The warning comes first and stands alone. STE puts a warning before the step it applies to and starts it with a clear command. In the original, a technician reads about the injury after reading the instructions that prevent it.
• One instruction per sentence, in a numbered list. Four actions were packed into one sentence. Now each is a step in the order the technician does them.
• The imperative, in the active voice. "The pressure has been fully released" became "Release the hydraulic pressure." The reader is the one who acts, and the sentence says so.
• Approved words. "Prior to the commencement of" became "before." "Ensure" became "make sure." "Sustain injury" became "cause injury."
• A check step was added. The original assumed the pressure was gone. The rewrite asks the technician to confirm it on the gauge, because a procedure that cannot be verified is a procedure that gets skipped.

The content is unchanged: the same hazard, the same two preconditions, the same task. Only the language is simpler. That is the whole argument for plain language, and the field note makes it at length.

Try it in the lab