It is the citation style that is being used within the structure of the writing. Avoid using e.g. Make sure links are descriptive so that person will understand what they'll get when they click on them. The rules are different from practices adapted to print to support principles related to accessibility, readability and usability. Surround a long sentence with shorter ones because it helps people understand the long sentence. Make sure you comply with the minimum colour contrast rules (1.4.3) from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. The requirements apply to departments and other organizations of the federal public administration listed in Schedules I, I.1 and II of the Financial Administration Act. If a detailed and equivalent explanation of the image appears in the text immediately before or after a complex image, you don't have to provide a long description. The purpose of these rules is to make web content easy to find, easy to understand and easy to use for everyone, including people who have physical or cognitive disabilities. Write: Learn about savings plans that can help you save enough money to retire. For example, your college writing assignments will likely require far more detail and content, as well as evidence to support your thoughts. That same research also shows that a student’s writing is likely to improve substantially when he or she makes continual revisions and edits to the work. Some non-government web content isn't available in both official languages. Positive: You're entitled to part of the deduction. A transcript is the text equivalent of an audio or video file. The key is to simply write. Check the reading level of your text. Source: Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat Note: Includes all tenures. Keep sentence structure simple by putting the subject and the verb at the beginning of the sentence and by using the subject + verb + object construction. Use the clearest, most popular term for your audience. Your links should be descriptive and able to stand alone so that it's clear what people can expect if they click on them. Business activities are grouped into 4 perspectives, all of which are interdependent and come from the vision and strategy. Write: July 31, 2016, or just July 31 if the year is already clear Instead of: July 31st, 2016, or July 31st. Instead of: Any type of investment will be taken into consideration. You may use "my" in content, page titles and links for proper names (such as My Service Canada Account). The page title, headings and subheadings help people find information on the screen easily. It is mostly used in academic papers, cover letters, letters of recommendations, and advertisements. To check whether your content is easy to read and understand, test it: If your content has a high reading level, or if usability testing shows low task completion, try to: The tone of the government's web content should be: Write as if you were talking to your audience in person, but with the authority of an institution that provides information as part of its mandate. Leave your home immediately and move to fresh air. The information in it came from a data table. Use the title tag and the description metadata field to improve where your publication ranks in search results. Then, check the table of contents to make sure you've correctly structured the page title, headings and subheadings. Name the other organization when your content refers to it. Writing is the primary basis upon which your work, your learning, and your intellect will be evaluated, and expresses who you are as a person. Readability is the ease with which a person can read and understand a text. Assistive technologies like a screen reader will notify the person if the cell is blank. There are four recognized writing styles: Discover these leading resources to further understand writing styles: The Main Types of Writing Styles and How to Use Them as a Writer. Here's Why to Avoid "Marketese" Only, Sarah Bauer Reaching Out: A Guide to Communicating With Aboriginal Seniors, Health Canada Resources of the Language Portal of Canada, Government of Canada Skills in Canada: First Results from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, Statistics Canada Study: Literacy and numeracy among off-reserve First Nations people and Métis, 2012, Statistics Canada Study: University graduates with lower levels of literacy and numeracy skills, 2012, Statistics Canada TERMIUM Plus®, Translation Bureau The Canadian Style, Translation Bureau The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing, George A. Miller Use pair writing to collaborate with subject matter experts, Jonathan Kahn, GatherContent Watch Your Punctuation Online, Search Engine People Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Why Don't Screen Readers Always Read What's on the Screen?, The Deque Blog Writing for the web, Nielsen Norman Group Writing for the Web: Principles and Guidelines, University of Ottawa, © Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, represented by the President of the Treasury Board, 2017, ISBN: 978-0-660-09352-9.