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Content guide

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ShannonTucker edited this page Mar 8, 2022 · 1 revision

Overview

The existing Canada.ca Content Style Guide contain comprehensive rules for creating web content that can be easily found, understood, and used.

The official page includes the following:

  1. Writing principles for web content
  • Making content intuitive, comprehensive, targeted, and consistent
  • Writing for accessibility
  • Writing for inclusivity
  • Writing for readability
  • Writing for specialized audiences
  • Consider screen sizes
  • Providing equivalent content in both official languages
  1. Plain language
  • Start with the most important information
  • Use simple common words
  • Use active voice and positive form
  • Use verbs instead of nouns formed from verbs
  • Avoid jargon, idioms and expressions
  • Use simple sentences
  • Use short sentences and paragraphs
  • Explain references to legislation
  • Check the reading level of the content
  1. Tone
  • Write directly to the person - Use an informal tone, and speak directly to people by using the second person ("you," "your"). Examples of statements that use the second person
  • Send your application to…
  • To get this benefit you must…
  • Use "we" to refer to the Government of Canada
  • Important considerations on when to use WE / OUR vs Government of Canada vs Service Canada
  • Expressing an obligation or a recommendation
  1. Style
  • Capitalization and punctuation
  • Titles, headings and subheadings
  • Lists
  • Links
  • Commas
  • Hyphen and dashes
  • Underlining, bold, italics
  • Symbols
  • Abbreviations and acronyms
  • Contractions
  • Numbers
  • Dates
  • Times
  • Phone numbers
  • Addresses
  • Words and expressions in transition
  1. Content structure
  • Write useful page titles and headings
  • Use lists to help people scan
  • Lead-in sentence
  • Numbered lists
  • Bulleted lists
  • Alphabetical lists
  • Use tables to organize data

  1. Images and videos - Referenced in the Images style

  2. Links

  • Use links strategically
  • Write descriptive links
  • Make sure that links work
  • Linking to non-government content

For more information view the Content Management Toolkit. If you have questions, please contact the Content Management team.

4A Assessment

Accept unless additional language on Service Canada is required

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