The one I give students when I teach them is: Never underestimate intelligence. ALWAYS underestimate vocabulary.
People can and do want to learn about super complex topics, we just need to not lose them on the way!
This week, graduate students in my course are learning how to write about science for the non-expert public.
For those of you who do this professionally, what tips would you offer?
Counter: professionals need jargon for speed and ease and preciseness of communication.
It goes without saying that people who weaponise jargon against outsiders are garbage.
In my work in various professions, I have never found this to be true. There are abbreviations to save time, but it is generally obfuscation to show "I am smarter than you."
I’m beginning to wonder if you have a STEM qualification or have ever worked in the sector tbh. In my field an indurated volcaniclastic crystal tephra is an extremely specific description and is in no way obfuscatory.
And by extremely specific I mean the geologist who heard that sentence knows instantly what’s being described.
You think that’s obfuscation, that we’re not talking at the level of a passing layperson?
25 years teaching science at the high school and college levels, so my job was to break down the jargon into understandable English for people. I was a jargon translator.
