Jargon and acronyms

How to handle jargon and acronyms for different audiences.

Avoiding jargon and acronyms is common advice for simple readable language. Unfortunately, this is not easy advice to put into action. Whether acronyms or jargon are appropriate will depend on the subject and the audience.

Jargon and difficult words

Thinking about the audience

What is a difficult word or jargon varies by the knowledge and experience of the reader. For a professional group, not using jargon would make communication more difficult. It would lead to misunderstanding.

In famous cartoon xkcd: Up Goer Five, uses only the 1000 most frequent words in English to describe a space rocket. It would be easier for even lay readers to learn basic jargon such as "escape hatch" than to read an entire article like this.

The problem with using jargon in public communication is not that the reader does not know it but that it is used unthinkingly. It is possible to use jargon in such a way that the reader's knowledge is built up as they read.

Types of audiences and their needs

Type of audience	Audience needs	Strategies for using jargon
Professional in-group	Jargon is part of the vocabulary expected of every member	Use jargon freely
Professional out-group (e.g. related profession)	Jargon is part of the vocabulary but many aspects of the specialist jargon used in the text may be unfamiliar	Use jargon freely but consider: Does same jargon have different meaning in different subdisciplines? Are some terms specific to your subdiscipline? Take extra care to define what you mean by specialist terms.
Prospective members of professional in-group	Likely unfamiliar with most jargon but are expected to learn.	Use jargon in such a way that the readers' knowledge is built up gradually. Provide frequent definitions and glossaries. Consider the stage of learning of the reader.
General public	Unfamiliar with jargon of your profession and discipline. Will not engage with your text for long enough to be expected to learn or look up jargon.	Avoid jargon if at all possible. Exception may be terms expected to be known by the educated public (e.g. genetics). Repeat the term earlier than might seem natural rather than referring back to it with a pronoun. Pay special attention to in-group language you may have forgotten is not commonly used in non-professional setting. Pay attention to when you are making wording decisions based on what others in your group will think. Check understanding with a reader outside your group.

Note

Avoiding jargon is a balancing act with no perfect solution. Even with care, many professional writers may not realise that terms they use daily in informal conversations are actually jargon.

Also, jargon is usually not the biggest problem the reader will face. Often, dense paragraphs with long complex sentences will be more of a problem.

Acronyms

Acronyms are a type of jargon. They are often used as part of the vocabulary of a professional group. All the tips about jargon apply here, as well.

Pros of acronyms

Reduce amount of repetitive text
Make sentence with complex structures easier to process
Use more familiar form of a name to a group

Cons of acronyms

Readers with dyslexia struggle with processing unfamiliar words
Screen readers pronounce acronyms unpredictably
People outside your group have to learn them as jargon

"In fact, many acronyms just become words for groups of people who use them often. They become part of the vocabulary that is expected of a member of the group. It would be doing your readers a disservice not to use the acronym even if the reader is new to the group."

How to use acronyms

Type of audience	Types of document	Strategies
Internal group	Internal communications such as emails or memos Guides and policy documents	You can use common acronyms freely without providing the full text anywhere. Make sure that new members of the group can access the acronyms.
Professional group with external members	Academic publications Reports aimed at professional bodies	Make sure all acronyms are explained at least once If there are many new acronyms, provide a glossary Some exceptions may be well-known acronyms (DfE, DoJ, EU)
Public communication	Website for potential employees Public relations documents Public guidance on professional matters	Avoid the use of acronyms altogether When acronyms are necessary for readability provide an explanation Do not just spell out the acronym once, spell it out again after a few paragraphs

Ad-hoc acronyms

Writers in academic settings will often make up acronyms for a repetitive term that occurs frequently. Often, they do this for two contrasting terms. For instance, in this text, I might have chosen J, A, AHA for jargon, acronyms, and ad-hoc acronyms.

This is almost never worth it.

Remember, a paragraph that may take you 15-30 minutes to write will take your reader about 1 minute to read. The reader has much less time to become familiar with it. Your readers are more likely to confuse the terms and misunderstand the text.