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Christine Mowat, Founder
Christine founded and was president of Wordsmith Associates for 30 years from 1980 to 2010. She continues to advise Wordsmith and work on high-level writing projects.
Before starting Wordsmith Associates in 1980, Christine Mowat taught English to adults for 13 years in England, Kenya, and Canada. Her Queen's University degree combined Philosophy and English. Her M.A. thesis, Writing and the Inner Voice, focused on the writing process.
Publications and Teaching
Christine has authored more than 30 articles, co-edited a textbook, Native Peoples in Canadian Literature, and designed and instructed eight Wordsmith programs, including Improving Legal Writing and Written Communications.
Christine’s book, A Plain Language Handbook for Legal Writers, was published in 1999 by Carswell Thomson Professional Publishers in Toronto. Christine is currently working on the second edition.
One of Christine’s publications, “A Plain Language Audit on The Decline and Fall of Gobbledygook” for the Canadian Bar Association, reflects her interest in plain-language theory and practice. Her article, “Do Universities Breed Illiteracy?” in Queen’s Alumni Review, analyses failings in academic writing. She was a regular contributor to Rapport, a B.C. plain language publication, Clarity, the international plain-language newsletter, and LawNow. Her article “Buddhists, Running, and Plain Language in Calgary”, published by the Michigan Bar Journal, is a corporation case history. In 2005, Clarity published her article “Exploring meanings of plain language”.
For years, Christine instructed at The University of Calgary's Faculty of Management Executive Development Program, the Banff Centre for Management, and the University of Alberta.
Leadership in Literacy and Plain-language Associations
Christine has been a director on several community boards, including Edmonton’s Prospects Literacy Association (now the Family Literacy Centre) for five years.
Her leadership in the plain-language international arena is well known. Christine chaired the Executive Committee of Plain Language Association InterNational (PLAIN) for the years leading up to the 2002 Toronto conference for 200 participants from nine countries. She was Vice-Chair for PLAIN for four years.
In October 2007, she chaired the PLAIN conference in Amsterdam and in 2008, presented at Clarity’s conference in Mexico City. She is a member of the Plain Language International Working Group working on accreditation of plain-language specialists. Christine received a lifetime achievement award from the Plain Language Association INternational (PLAIN) at their 2009 conference in Australia.
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