This study deals with Canada Customs and Revenue Agency’s (CCRA) Readability and Editing Section. Several years ago, CCRA (then Revenue Canada) firmly committed to improving its communications and making plain language a priority. At the end of the 1980s, it set up the Readability and Editing Section.
The Readability and Editing Section, which consists of 18 full-time employees (with support from freelancers as required), oversees language quality and the use of plain language. The service has made guidelines on the writing style used in the organization and on writing in plain language available to its employees.
The service edits numerous communication products for the public at large and for CCRA employees. Each day brings its batch of texts of all kinds: press releases, information documents, questions and answers, media lines, media advisories, speeches, miscellaneous bulletins and notices, ministerial messages, and messages from the Commissioner and other senior Agency executives.
Each year, the Readability and Editing Section, in conjunction with Client Services of the Tax Services Office, edits the entire series of fiscal publications. This represents hundreds of pages of forms and thousands of pages of guides and brochures. Each document is subject to very tight deadlines, dictated by document authorization and printing schedules.
However, readability and editing officers do not merely pencil corrections into written documents. Other Public Affairs Branch sectors ask for their contributions in other areas where questions can also arise in relation to plain language.
For the past three years, CCRA has run a nationally televised advertising campaign during the tax return production period. In the early design phases, the officers are called upon to give their advice on the messages and dialogue for the advertisements, to maximize the campaign’s effectiveness. Numerous production factors come into play as well, of course, but the organization recognizes the importance of a clear message and appropriate language level.
The Department also calls on the officers’ expertise in some public opinion research by asking them to participate in focus group testing. Officers are encouraged to recognize situations where plain language would ensure that CCRA’s message is understood and to propose solutions in that regard. If people clearly understand the messages, they will make fewer mistakes and will not need to call telephone information services for clarification.