It is best not to use jargon. You may think otherwise, but it makes your writing harder to understand.

After writing about the virtues of snappy, easy-to-read writing, I re-read earlier stories on this site and found shocking examples of mangement-speak jargon.

For example, in Managing change: keeping a lid on panic I wrote about 'participative management'.

Are these jargon terms avoidable?

They should be. 'Participative management' is a horrid term.

Ambiguous language is bad languge

It is ambiguous – it could mean a number of things. And the five syllable word 'participative' is troublesome on a number of fronts.

The phrase is typical of the highfalutin jargon-laden nonsense empty-headed bosses puff themselves up with.

Yes, I confess it is bad. Yet I don't think it would be possible to write about the subject without using the term.

I thought of going back and changing the term to 'open management'. The term is still a tad wanky and ambiguous, but 'open' is miles better than 'participative'.

Let me be understood

The problem is, nobody understands what the term 'open management' means. You could almost say the same about 'participative management'. But the term is understood by management experts and academics.

Google lists 170,000 entries for 'participative management'. They mainly refer to the same thing.

There are 73,000 Google entries for 'open management'. One look at the first page of entries shows the term is used in a variety of different ways – in some cases for complicated information technology things.

So, it looks as if we are stuck with 'participative management' and hundreds of other management terms. In my next post we'll look at how to use them and not lose our readers.

Your job as a writer is to get your message across clearly and quickly.

One way you can sabotage your communication is by laying traps for readers. They stop a reader's flow as their eye scans over text.

Punctuation – as the name suggests – stops flow. This is why, for example, I leave out all optional commas.

You can also slow down a reader's flow when you use capital letters incorrectly. For the same reason you should never write a word entirely in capitals.

Likewise I don't use the '&' symbol – instead I write 'and'. The exception to this rule is when the '&' forms part of a company's name.

The same applies to '+'. I've used it at the top of this page, but it doesn't count because it's not a piece of flowing text.

It is also better to write out percent in full than use %. Although some newspapers, including one where I work, insists on using the symbol.

Never resort to phone text-style language in anything written for a wider audience. It's not funny, clever or useful.

Sheldon Nesdale offers five useful tips to help newcomers to web writing.

Nesdale is a marketing consultant. So his approach to web writing differs from mine.

When I wrote  Writing for the web in 300 words I called on the lessons I first learnt as a newspaper journalist almost 30 years ago.

Nesdale's How to write for the web attacks the same subject from a marketing and sales point of view.

The two approaches overlap. We both prefer snappy, well signposted text. We both pay attention to the way words are organised on a page.

There's only one piece of Nesdale's advice I disagree with. And then only partly. He starts by telling readers to write long descriptive headlines to help skimmers find their way to the story.

I say skilled writers should do the same job with tight, smartly written headlines.

If you're not a skilled writer, then by all means use those  long descriptive headlines. But think how you can compact the same meaning into fewer words.

I've nothing but praise for the thinking behind the Writemark Plain English Awards. Getting rid of gobbledygook is a cause close to my heart.

Yet in a case of the cobbler's children's shoes, the Writemark site needs fixing.

Here is the section headed "What is plain English?" you can find this paragraph:

Plain English allows people to participate in government, commercial, legal, and leisure activities more effectively because they can understand the information presented to them. Plain English also has proven benefits for organisations that use it in their publications — including significant cost savings.

It could be plainer. And, tut tut, it uses an American-style comma in a list before 'and'.

Let's make that paragraph plainer:

Plain English makes information easy to understand. It means people can play a more effective part in government, commerce, law and leisure. It's also good for organisations; among other things it saves money.

1. Start straight away. Don't waste time warming up.
2. Reduce barriers between your ideas and your audience.
3. Write clearly. Use readily understandable language. Be unambiguous.
4. Learn grammar. Forget what teachers said about long words making you look smart. It's not true.
5. Instead use simple words, grammar and sentences. It's harder to go wrong.
6. Go easy on adjectives and adverbs.
7. Spellcheck.
8. Try to imagine your reader – an ordinary bloke or woman. Write for that person.
9. Use 'be' verbs sparingly to make your writing more interesting. Use them even less in headlines.
10. "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." Most people think it was Mark Twain; it was Blaise Pascal, a French Mathematician.
11. Keep sentences short; up to 20 words. A 15 word sentence limit is better.
12. Keep paragraphs short; usually one to four sentences. Only use more if you need to.
13. Use plenty of full stops and line breaks. Use lists and bullet points. Be generous with crossheads (secondary headings).
14. Highlight keywords with bold or italics.
15. Writing is story telling.
16. Summarise your story in the headline.
17. If you write an introduction use it to tell readers what your story is about. Expand on your ideas in the following paragraphs.
18. Write so the story can be cut at any point yet readers have the maximum information.
19. Aim for short and crisp. Online readers will tire after 200 words and start dropping out at around 300 Keep most stories below this length although you can write some longer pieces.
20. You can find longer explanations of all these points elsewhere on this site.

My presentation from WordCampNZ in 300 words.

What to do when an interview subject talks like a robot

Interviews are the best way to quickly collect information for any kind of writing.

As a freelance journalist I interview two or three people every day.

I like writing interviews because other people's words are livelier and more interesting than long passages of descriptive prose.

Most interviews go well. The best interviewees know their stuff and express their ideas clearly. And they sound human. That is, they talk like real people and use everyday language.

Some interview subjects are anything but human. They sound like bloodless automatons.

Some people hide behind jargon and officialese because they feel safe that way or because they, wrongly, think it makes them sound smarter. They may be nervous or not confident using their own words.

Another explanation is media training. Some interviewees learn or prepare 'canned' statements designed to stay "on message". In some cases there is a communications professional standing in the wings.

They sound like they are reading from a prepared document. Sometimes they are.

I've three techniques for helping interviewees to sound human:

1. Let them get the canned statements off their chest first. Take notes – this could be all you get. Then ask them questions which get them to say the same things again. They'll be far more likely to speak like humans second-time around. If this doesn't work, I've found even Daleks run out of resistance when you go back for a third try.
2. Play dumb, get them to explain jargon. Some interviewers fear this because they worry it makes them look stupid. Don't worry; you can look smart when your copy appears explaining difficult ideas in understandable English to the rest of humanity. If it really bothers you, say something like: "I understand what it means, but my readers aren't familiar with the term".
3. Put them at ease. This may sound like a black hat strategy, it isn't. Often interview subjects are tense before the interview. Once they think they have delivered the key message in their corporate language they often relax. When this happens chat about their words, go over points casually– but keep your eyes and ears open. If you use a microphone leave it running.
   Once the show is over, interview subjects drop back into human form. I've had interviews where the best words came travelling down in the lift or even while unlocking my car to drive home.
   

Good writing doesn't always come easily.

It boils down to making an effort to think clearly — then turning your lucid thoughts into words in a logical fashion.

Most people can usually produce simple, straightforward copy even if they've little experience.

Start by sticking to basic words and simple sentence structures. Don't worry if it feels like plodding. You can experiment when you feel more confident.

Inexperienced technology writers often have one of three faults:

• A pompous and overbearing style. Avoid this by being friendly, although not too chatty. And by using active language.
• Too technical. By this I mean it does not explain technical aspects clearly enough to non-experts. Fix this by keeping the jargon to a minimum and explaining tricky ideas in simple terms. Don't worry if  this makes your writing longer.
• Trying to be cute. There's nothing wrong with making jokes or using everyday speech, but beginner writers often take this too far, to the point where it's hard to understand what is being said.

Pitching your copy at the right level is the hardest part of technology writing. It's accepted wisdom with technology writers that no one ever succeeds in this business by overestimating the reader's intelligence, but then we also know no one succeeds by underestimating them either.

Remember people who are expert in one area of technology, may not automatically understand other areas. And a technically literate readership does not give one a licence for sloppy explainations of complex technical matters.

If you find this difficult to grasp, imagine you are writing for an intelligent colleague working in another area of your organisation.

• Picture that person reading your words.
• What questions would they ask if you were in the room with them? Make sure the text answers these questions.
• Have you written something they would find patronising? Hit the delete button and make that point again.

Finally, always get someone to proofread your copy. Ask them to point out what doesn't make sense and to see if you've made any obvious errors. Don't take offence if they find lots of things that need changing, your pride will be more wounded if the rest of the world saw your mistakes.

Update: I'm indebted to Thomas Beagle for reminding me about bullet points. Like the man says, use them where possible to break up block of text and make your writing easier to navigate.

Good writing is direct, clear and precise. It sends your thoughts and ideas directly to readers.

Concrete nouns keep your writing on track. They are unambiguous, specific and to the point. Use concrete nouns to pin things down and inform readers.

A noun is concrete when it refers to something you can touch, smell, see, taste or hear. They are things you sense directly.

Banana, chair, piston engine, trumpet, pterodactyl are all concrete nouns.

I like to think of concrete nouns as crunchy, but they could be squishy, smelly, loud or colourful.

On the other hand, abstract nouns are things you can't form a picture of. They are ideas, conditions and qualities, such as courage and happiness.

Many abstract nouns started life as verbs or adverbs, but become abstract nouns with suffixes. So fascinate, becomes fascination, credible becomes credibility and so on.

If you are reporting on events, it's best to steer clear of abstract nouns.

Abstract nouns are useful when you want to generalise or when writing about ideas. However they make it hard to figure out exactly what the writer means and writing is often open to misinterpretation.