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Wordnerdery Sue Horner’s monthly tips on words and ways to reach readers – January 2022

Issue 107 – January 2022

Before & after: Want feedback? Get to the point

If you want public comment, don’t start your post with a 36-word sentence and wait until the end to ask.

In “regular” times, Toronto’s Pearson International Airport sees about 1,300 flights land and take off every day.

At 100+ decibels, the sound of a large jet nearing the runway’s end is as noisy as being in the front row of a rock concert. (Remember those?) While the pandemic slashed the number of planes criss-crossing the sky, business is picking up. And that means noise is coming back as a big issue for communities under the flight paths.

That’s a concern for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, which runs Pearson, and NAV CANADA, which governs air navigation like flight arrival procedures. To their credit, they’ve been monitoring noise and sharing what they’re doing with the community. Are they being clear, though?

A piece on the NAV Canada website alerting visitors to an upcoming “Public Consultation” called out for a “Before & After” treatment. I ran the page through the Hemingway app to get a fast impression of how easy it is to read.

The opening is off to a bad start.

Pinky-red indicates “very hard to read.”
NAV CANADA and its industry partners, including the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) recognize that aircraft and airport operations have impacts and we are committed to pursuing collaborative efforts to minimize and mitigate environmental impacts – both noise and emissions – where possible.
  • It's a 36-word sentence, flagged in pinky-red as very hard to read. The American Press Institute says this means readers will only understand about 30 to 39% of it. An average of 9 to 14 words = 90 to 99%.
  • It’s written at a post-graduate level, typical of dense academic papers. Only about 4.5% of adults can comfortably read at this level.
  • It doesn't get to the point. The “Public Consultation” – the whole point of the piece, supposedly – isn’t even mentioned. That's in the second-to-last paragraph, 314 words into the article.

Following the plain language standard of putting the most important information up front, I rewrote the opening to briefly set the stage and mention the public consultation:

One sentence is still hard to read, but mostly due to the lengthy GTAA name.
NAV CANADA wants to make the skies around Pearson cleaner, greener and quieter. We're sure you do, too. We're working with the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) and others to reduce both noise and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We want the public to understand our proposed improvements.

The original piece continues with comments about the pandemic, including the overworked “unprecedented,” guaranteed to make eyes glaze over. There’s also some back-patting about the industry. And finally, finally, at the very end, we find out there will be public consultation. There is no mention of where and when, and it's not obvious that you have to scroll quite far down the page to find out.

Can't read it? Probably just as well. The pinky-red tells you this is virtually unreadable.

I cut out the blather about unprecedented times, took out the repetition of the GTAA acronym and used shorter words and sentences. I also got to the point, summed up as: “We need to act. Here’s how. We want to know what you think." Here’s my rewrite:

The rewrite has only two very hard sentences.

There are still two pinky-red sentences, but readability is now a comfortable grade 9 level. I would also add links to "Do this online" and "upcoming virtual Open House" so readers can jump to the appropriate spot.

How did I do? What else would you change? Let me know. And if you’ve seen another “Before” in need of an “After," please share!

Related reading:

Learn more about noise management at Pearson

InsightFull is a new tool to check activity in communities near Pearson

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