International Literacy Day

Today is International Literacy Day! In this blog, our intern Zahrah explains more about the day and what it stands for. She also talks about what we do to make our cancer information clear and easy for people to understand.

50 years ago, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) officially announced 8th September as International Literacy Day. The aim is to raise international awareness about improving literacy rates and tackle issues including a person’s ability to access and understand health related information.

According to the National Literacy Trust: ‘Around 16%, or 5.2 million adults in England, can be described as "functionally illiterate". They would not pass an English GCSE and have literacy levels at or below those expected of an 11-year-old.’

In our team, we are very aware that there is a lot of information about cancer. And that it can be quite overwhelming to understand information and words that we aren’t familiar with. We need to think about the language we use and how we write it. We try to make sure that everyone affected by cancer can easily read and understand our information, and so the reading age of our content is 12.

We have medical professionals and also people who have experienced cancer to help us make sure our information is easy to make sense of. Our team of volunteer reviewers play a huge part in helping us improve our cancer information by giving us honest feedback. We currently have over 200 reviewers and are always looking for more to join our team, so if you love reading and would like to help others affected by cancer, this is a great opportunity!

Our editors and content developers are also constantly thinking about whether the information they are working on is as clear and easy to read as possible. Here are some of the important things we consider to improve the clarity of our content:

• Remember that the active voice is normally better than the passive.
  The active voice is more concise and sounds personal, whereas the passive voice can sound formal and distant at times. For example:
  
  ‘The letter was sent by the GP’ uses the passive voice.
  ‘The GP sent the Letter’ uses the active voice.

• Make only one point per sentence.
  Keeping sentences short and making one point at a time makes it easier to understand the information.

• Avoid using jargon.
  We only use medical terms where we think people may hear health professionals using it. If a medical term is used in a sentence, we always explain what it means.
  
  
• Use illustrations to support text.
  For example this illustration about what cancer is:

• Add photos to support text.
  
  
• Include infographics to help explain complex text.
  
  
• Use a white background on the page. It is visually clearer and makes the text easier to read.
  
  
• Include real life quotes from people affected by cancer sharing their experiences on the topic being discussed. For example: 
  
  

• Be Personal. We like to sound like a person so we write our content like we are having a conversation with our audience. For example:
  
  ‘Try setting yourself small goals that you can achieve, such as walking to the front door.’

• Use direct and clear language. This makes it easier for everyone to follow and take in the information. For example we say:
  
  ‘take your tablets once a day’ 
  instead of ‘tablets should be taken once daily’.

• Give balanced information. We try to give balanced information on risks and benefits to help people make informed choices.

Everyone has the right to have information that empowers and supports them. The Cancer Information and Development (CID) team produce a range of information as booklets and leaflets, and in a variety of online and audio formats to meet everyone’s needs.

We also offer a range of languages and formats and sign language videos too.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for, call our cancer support specialists on 0808 808 00 00.We are always here to help.

To see what else Macmillan's cancer information team has been blogging about, please visit our blog home page! You can subscribe to receive our blogs by email or RSS too.

We're with you every step of the way

The Macmillan team is here to help. Our cancer support specialists can answer your questions, offer support, or simply listen if you need a chat. Call us free on 0808 808 00 00.

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