Slashdot Mirror
Should Journalists Embrace Jargon?
ananyo writes "In an opinion piece for Nature, science writer Trevor Quirk argues that researchers use jargon to 'capture the complexity and specificity of scientific concepts.' Avoiding jargon might mean that a piece ends up easier to read, but explaining a jargon term using everyday language 'does not present the whole truth,' he says. 'I find it troubling that the same antipathy that some writers express towards jargon has taken root in the public's general attitude towards erudite language. I submit that this is no coincidence. People seem to resent not just specialized language, but any language that requires a large degree of labour to understand, appreciate and use,' he writes. 'The world increases in complexity every day, and we should not let shrink our capacity to describe it.'"
However, some language prescribes different meaning within different contexts. Anonymous on slashdot is different than Anonymous in the news is different from an anonymous ftp login.
But first, please stop using "God particle", which is not jargon. It is just stupid.
Link to Nature article http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/487407a (no paywall).
Depends on the audience that the thing you want to say.
The first two categories are obvious:
Complex concept to aimed at people in the field: jargon away
Simple concept aimed at general audience: minimal jargon, spell out the stuff you do use
The other two categories are tricky, and in my opinion, in extreme cases, shouldn't be attempted.
Trying to write too much stuff to a differing audience results in something that is mostly useless for both. We see this all the time in software. People try to write up a design spec / user manual / whatever aimed at everyone from the customers to the project manager to the team lead to the coders who will implement it. All those people require very different information for different purposes and operate with a different vocabulary. You end up with something too technical for the customer, to "clean" for the project manager, and too verbose/lacking of details for the coders.
Better approach is to just make seperate documents.. you actually end up saving more time and a lot saner in my opinion.. and you produce something useful (which is always nice).
Should journalists understand what they write?
I mean really, what possible purpose could understanding the topic of conversation possibly contribute?
Then we'd have to actually learn stuff!!
I am totally behind this. The reason we have jargon and technical terms in the first place is specificity, and failure to use these specially created words and phrases only causes confusion and false understandings. Investing some time on the front end so you can have an easier conversation in a couple months always pays off. We somehow managed to learn that meat could be chicken, beef, or pork, how come we can't learn that T1 could be PRI, DIA, or dark?
What? What is the problem? Is antipathy regarding jargon an issue for journalists?
If a language requires a large degree of labour to understand, there's no point using it in an article intended for the general public. Oooooh, this isn't about journalists (as I understood it from the title), it's about researchers acting like journalists.
My fear is that the percentage of people who use language correctly seems to be diminishing. I reassure myself with the thought that I can't pinpoint when this started happening. Our caveman ancestors would no doubt have torn The Reader Over Your Shoulder to shreds, metaphorically.
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
Why is this sort of non-sense continuing to come up? If your audience is highly technical, and knowledgeable in the field then speak the language. If they are not, then bring it down to their level. It's common sense. The real question that should be being asked is whether or not to use non-technical, attention grabbing "buzz" words that add no value and are more likely to distance the reader from and hinder their understanding of the subject being discussed.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Case in point
The Senate Democratsâ(TM) bill would extend the tax cuts â" which are now set to expire at the end of the year â" just on incomes under $250,000 for a couple and $200,000 for an individual. ... The GOP bill would extend the tax cuts for all taxpayers
As I understand it, the Democrat bill will also extend tax cuts for all taxpayers, just not for the amounts above 200K/250K. Most articles make it seem like if you earn 251K, then you are going to get no tax reductions at all (rather than tax reduction on 250K and no reduction on the remaining 1K).
How about that for a change? If you don't know about it, learn 1st - it doesn't have to be a degree, at least good laymen's know-how with citable material from reputable sources. I.E. - Brush up yourself on it as well as possible on your part before writing on it. What's the point otherwise??? You can't sell product, even news/ideas, without believing in it. You can't believe in it if you didn't know it well enough in the first place. Yes, lastly, it's simple enough to tell as the consumer of said ouputs as to what is what on that account as to whether the deliverer of it knows what he's on about.
If you don't have relevant qualifications, credit and refer to someone who does. Quote them explaining what the jargon means. It's the most honest way of saying 'I don't know what it means exactly, but I took the time to find someone who does'.
It's not like we're filthy primitives who live in caves and don't know how to hyperlink.
Just like everything else, the use of jargon comes in several forms -
Use it sparingly and the jargon can "enhance" the article
Use it to the extreme and lay people get confused to the point of giving up reading the article altogether
Even the way one uses everyday language can effect the read-a-bility of the article, believe it or not
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
There was a BBC article by Will Self on this recently also.
In defence of obscure words
Ralf
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
-Bertrand Russel
If you're writing for Nature, yes, you should use scientific jargon. Your audience are scientists, or those interested enough in science to buy Nature. Maybe include a glossary, or a quick definition in an aside, but your audience is looking for technical details, not a quick summary.
If you're writing for the Times, don't. Your audience doesn't care about the ins-and-outs, they want to hear about practical effects.
I did one single subject in Journalism at university almost ten years ago and I know this. This is not rocket science.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
How about we not create so much unnecessary jargon in the first place? Is it really necessary to say "Mr.Smith, you have a serious condition called 'pneumothorax'", followed by an explanation when you could simply say "Mr.Smith, your lung has collapsed."? If there already is a simple descriptive term that adequately expresses what you wish to say, stop inventing argot just so you can look smart. Yes, people tend to think you are smart when you speak of things they don't understand. When you take advantage of that, you're just being a pompous jerk.
Of course they should embrace jargon if they want to stay ahead of the curve when the paradigm
shifts are coming faster than the speed of a proton in the CERN basement, and thicker than
the skull of the past two CEOs of HP.
But muhfggaz gotz ta be hip to use the shit right, so they beez cold-lampin'
with the laptop and serenading the Sirens of Titan.
Bear in mind that most publications are intentionally written at a fifth grade reading level, so that the average reader can handle them. Using jargon would probably be too much for the average reader.
Why do I have to learn all these technical terms, I just want to drive a car!
because they are, for the most part, barely literate.
Tower of Babylon
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
When the jargon comes from military or political pundits who use Newspeak to obfuscate and manipulate an information and analysis starved public, jargon provides the impression of tacit agreement and/or approval. And just as 'embedding' reporters with troops interferes with objectivity, unless a reporter can maintain some degree of separation and objectivity, by continually using more neutral terms, the reporter runs with risk of falling away from a less educated audience.
I find this to be particularly insidious in politics where the continual repetition of a term encourages the adoption of point of view as well. George Lakoff explains this tactic in his book, Don't Think of An Elephant.
First of all, many thanks for the link
I need to know how to use the DOI system to locate articles that are hidden behind paywall or walled-gardens
Not that I'm cheapskate or something, but there _are_ a lot of very crucial articles that are not available to the public, and I'm thinking to look into the DOI to dig out those articles
Please help.
Thank you again !!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
...or Canada. :)
"People seem to resent...any language that requires a [tiny] degree of labour to understand, appreciate and use."
Concepts that govern copywriting, like KISS, dumb down not only language and content, but the dormant inquisitiveness that I prefer to assume lies deep within most readers. As long as we keep dumbing everything down (warning labels, copywriting)...IDK...we might fucking up people's mirror neurons in a roundabout way.
Readership of large magazines and newspapers declined rather drastically since the Second World War.
In recent years, large media organizations are often using even simpler language than in previous decades.
So, I have to ask, while there will always be a small segment of the population with the desire to both be 'well-informed' and the discipline necessary to attain that goal, how are you going to bridge the gap between this small audience and the far larger one which primarily seeks non-educational entertainment?
While journalism with solid evidence and sophisticated language is an excellent ideal and a noble goal, the reality of a population with minimal desire to understand issues on a deeper level constrains the business side of things.
While the news media is partially to blame for the situation where many people are minimally educated and willfully ignorant, our education system, politics and cultural values all play a part as well. Are we going to change all of these facets of our contemporary society in order to make journalism with sophisticated language successful, and, if so, how would we go about doing so pragmatically?
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
call it "secret sauce" instead.
It seems as the world is getting more complex, the general population is becoming dumber. How many times have you seen reasonably intelligent people dismiss trying to attempt something because "It's too complicated for me"? This attitude is becoming the norm and is only being encouraged by dumbing things down for them. If it's truly too complicated for them, they probably can't contribute anything meaningful to the topic. Gettting the 4th grade version usually only leads to people opining on something they know very little about. (e.g. Almost all technology discussions)
I would say people should write with their intended audience in mind, but then somewhere along the line someone invented legalese and ruined everything for everybody, because the intended audience of that is no living thing.
What irks me though, is people that fish for as many big words as they can to try to sound clever, even when talking about things that should be simple. If you can't keep it straightforward, then you are just talking for your own benefit and nobody elses...
In summary, use jargon if you have to, but if you use it where you don't need to, I KILL YOU
Nothing irritates me more than seeing journalists use the phrase "so-called" to avoid explaining the meaning behind a technical (or simply colloquial) term. Or sometimes anything about the subject.
If people working in a particular field have a word to describe something common to that field, that IS the correct word to use. The insinuation that there is some ambiguity about what the thing should be referred to as is unnecessary.
Yes, it's not a yes or no answer; it's a matter of professional judgment, and there comes the rub, for there are so few professionals in modern journalism. Not because we're stupid but because we lack a culture of mentorship -- old pros are tossed aside like, well, yesterday's news, and the young are left to learn the long, hard, bad way -- often in an environment where survival is critical and ethics are optional. A recent example from what I now call Higgs-dependence Day (July 4): generally, the trend here went toward jargon. Journalists attempted to educate readers in a little of the theoretical minutiae behind the Higgs field, and ran the risk of losing those who didn't GAS in the first place anyway. Hacks and amateurs resorted instantly to the phrase "God particle" and ran with it. In politics, it's perhaps worst of all, because the hacks own the field, and even at places like the NYT, usualy reduce everything to what I call a common "de-numb-inator." I read Grist regularly and see the frustration amid their editors at the trained ignorance in matters like climate change/climate science. Again: the problem is in the culture, not in the people. Folks who want to keep their jobs know that you have to work from the outside in, and the further in you get the more cred you have. Professionals, the few that remain, know that the journalist's job is as a critical, questioning, sometimes abrasive outsider who names virtually all his sources and engages in little or no games of push-me-pull-you intellectual commerce.
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
At least as far as it relates to scientific jargon, every specialized field in science has it's own distinct jargon, that's not compatible with the jargon from any other scientific field, even when you have objects, methods, and traits that cross disciplines. Scientific journalists, unless they specialize in one very specific field should be smart enough to notice this. That's why they're hostile towards jargon. If the jargon was standard across all scientific fields, journalists would use more of it; because while all this makes perfect sense to scientists... nobody else gets it. And why should they? Seriously people.
This signature intentionally left blank.
Jargon is for jackanapes, whereas argot is for auteurs.
Hell, I would be happy if they would stop using "busted" instead of "broken".
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Pulling it into string theory will give you the "god string" which will be shortened to g-string.
But they should just randomly make some up in stories because, really, who's going to call them on it? If it sounds real enough, no one will know!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
First of all see Betteridge's Law of Headlines. Secondly did no one here pay attention in their high school English class. I did I just fell asleep for the grammar portions. One of the things I do remember is one of the first things you should consider when writing is your audience. If you use jargon that your audience won't understand you will alienate your audience instead of engaging them. So unless you're writing for people who already have at least a basic understanding of the subject matter the answers is no.
We all think the jargon of our chosen field is important and therefore should be widely understood. But really, think about this when you do your taxes and file legal documents. Do you invest the time and effort to learn the legalese? Why do you expect others to do the same for your field?
English has unusually broad origins: Anglo-Saxon, Norman French, Latin, and Greek. And for no good reason. It's entirely an artifact of its political history.
So, there is a lot of redundancy. Several words that mean the same thing yet someone says they all have different shades of meaning. Sometime true, like the difference between imply and infer. Other times, they are just all the same word, one Anglo-Saxon, one Latin, one Greek. It's like importing the Spanish word for dog, perro, and using dog sometimes and sometimes perro and claiming subtle shifts in meaning.
The author claims one advantage of jargon is brevity. Sometimes that's true. But the words of jargon typically are Latin, which always has more syllables than Anglo-Saxon. So if you measure the length by units of sound --- which more closely follows how much brainpower it takes to process a word --- and not by "words" of arbitrary length, then the jargonless version is usually shorter.
The worst is how scientists make up a new name using several long words. Then, since the phrase is too tiresome to write or say daily, they take turn it into an acronym, thus absolutely sealing its meaning. For example, when I was working as a technical writer describing a network, I remember unravelling Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA). "Carrier Sense" means "listening." "Multiple Access" means several are talking. So its a way for several to talk in the same room by first listening to make sure no one else already is saying something. Had they called it Listen-First Group Talk (5 syllables) instead of Carrier Sense Multiple Access (9 syllables) then technicians and laymen alike could grasp it on first hearing, and it would less likely have been acronymized, since it's just one more syllable than a four-letter acronym.
If you use the word "amazeballs" you should be silenced.
It depends on the audience. A physics review journal or a medical publication for doctors is going to be very unappealing if it's written in laymans terms. On the other hand magazines like New Scientist and Scientific American do a pretty good job of making scientific news accessible to everyone, and take the effort to explain jargon terms when used.
OTH, IMHO, I LMAO at the irony of where journalism is heading in general. DUCY?
The original paper describing the so-called God particle was supposed to be titled "The Goddamn Particle" because of how difficult it was to prove it existed, but the publisher said that Higgs could not use "Goddamn" in the title, and shortened it.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Amusingly, the Associated Press manual of style says to avoid jargon in news stories. They make one amusing exception: sports stories. Sports fans are expected to understand that jargon.
Read the Economist, which discusses subjects of considerable complexity with less financial jargon than Mad Money. They recently published one of the best explanations of the confirmation of the Higgs boson seen in the popular press. In inimitable Economist style, they point out that the neutron, discovered in 1932, was the last subatomic particle to have commercial applications.
There is more jargon in some unboxing videos than in Knuth's Fundamental Algorithms.
Secondly did no one here pay attention in their high school English class. I did I just fell asleep for the grammar portions.
You were apparently pretty drowsy during the lecture on punctuation, too.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
or hover bubbles, whatever. Why are we having 20th century arguments?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
While we're on the subject of jargon I wish to make a small detour to the realms of physics and reality.
First of all, one sends an electric current through a device/circuit/... not a voltage! Seeing this wrong just annoys me greatly. Another one is "the god particle", How does defining mass turn something into a god? Sure, it sounds far more spectacular but it's just plain wrong from a logical point of view. Another problem is the rampant usage of acronyms. It seems every invention and field of science these days has to come with its own expanded set of acronyms.They twist, cut and shape the name of the project just to be able to make a fancy sounding acronym. Just stop it already, Frankly put, I'm an engineer and I don't understand half the acronyms that I hear at technology conferences. They're probably made up on the spot cause they think it sounds impressive, guess what; It doesn't! So please journalists stop citing acronyms; Cause even the people who are familiar with the technology don't know what they mean. There's a wagon load of alternatives that you can use. And if you really must, do what we do in our articles:
ACRONYM ( WHAT IT REALLY MEANS IN BETWEEN BRACKETS )
Thank you for reading this rant on how idiotic and annoying reporters have gotten.
Avoiding jargon might mean that a piece ends up easier to read, but explaining a jargon term using everyday language 'does not present the whole truth,'
So jargon should be both used and not defined? If a term cannot be clearly described by the writer, then the writer does not understand it and should not be using it. If no-one can clearly describe the term, then no-one should be using it.
I find it troubling that the same antipathy that some writers express towards jargon has taken root in the public's general attitude towards erudite language.
You mean "specialist" language. So the veneer of respectability hiding his arrogance is revealed.
People seem to resent not just specialized language, but any language that requires a large degree of labour to understand, appreciate and use
No. It is easy to just throw out jargon. It is hard to communicate to a specific audience, explaining where appropriate. It seems Quirk is annoyed that scientists have to both do science and communicate it. Well, hard luck, buddy - almost other profession involves communication with those whose specialisation is different from yours.
The world increases in complexity every day, and we should not let shrink our capacity to describe it.
No, the world does not increase in complexity at all. Our understanding of it may increase, but this should make understanding it simpler providing that the theory is consistently applicable and well-described. A bunch of odd-ball abstract theories, as certain sciences enjoy developing with full force, may become ever more detailed - but that's not the world increasing in complexity.
Journalists use technical terms like "unnamed sources", "alleged", "deep throat", etc. They even have their own system of measurements beyond metric and imperial: "size of a football field/bus/grape/head of a pin".
If you understand it.
We like jargon because we understand it. I'll use a cricket example to highlight what this is like to other people:
There's three slips and a gully, he bowled googlies this over before in the hope of a wicket but he ended up with them getting a boundry for 4 and a leg bye. 10 overs left this innings, powerplay taken, no reviews, 10 through extras, a bit of rain on the horizon so it may go to Duckworth Lewis, chasing 254 for 7.
Simple right?
The original paper describing the so-called God particle was supposed to be titled "The Goddamn Particle" because of how difficult it was to prove it existed, but the publisher said that Higgs could not use "Goddamn" in the title, and shortened it.
You are confusing Higgs with Lederman.
Lederman proposed the name "goddamn particle" and then agreed with his publisher to call it the "God particle". Lederman even made up some bullshit to justify the name "God particle": "because the particle is so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive." (source)
“Lederman has a lot to answer for,” said Higgs. (source)
NO!
Journalists can't get "clip" and "magazine" correct. Or the difference between a "web designer" and a "computer programmer." In NO WAY do they have the base education to use any complicated jargon.
They need education that's not colored by a bunch of arrogance or "I write, I don't need to know about that" crap. Ignorance is still a virtue in their eyes because that keeps them from being nerds.
When journalists stop being total idiots, then, they'll naturally start using jargon and it will work fine. Until then. NO.
They would still need to lead into the jargon by a little explanation or context for readers that don't know though.
You all ready have enough idiots ghost writing for you.
No.
in a way where it actually mattered to you which flavor you had? For most people (likely including many physicists) the answer is "never".
I am a scientist, I work across multiple disciplines and have to deal with jargon from physics, chemistry, biology, law and the military. It's a lot of fun. Consider for a moment that undefined jargon is used in law and the military to prevent people from fully understanding something. Is a similar tactic a really a good idea in science?
As the various disciplines become more intertwined, the differences in jargon are creating problems. For example, you have terms like "free carrier" and "quantum efficiency" which may relate to light adsorption and the operation of a solar cell. Like much physics jargon, those terms imply a simplicity and elegance which is misleading when you get down to the real, formal definition. A fundamental misunderstanding of the definitions behind those terms has led to skewed estimates of the overall efficiency of some polymer and biological solar collectors. This in turn has led to bad research investments, with the failed companies and careers that come with that. Now, if physicists had done a better job disseminating the formal definitions of those terms, the people without a condensed matter physics background would have had a better chance for success.
Jargon is used within disciplines as a kind of short hand. There are (or should be) perfectly acceptable definitions for each term. The jargon (such as "free carrier") used is not important, it's the definition of those terms which is meaningful and which needs to be present when trying to communicate precisely.
There are folks who say some word/concept in another language cannot be translated to English.
Bull shit.
If words actually mean things, then you can translate _any_ concept. If you don't believe this, then you'd _have_ to believe that the only way to understand the foreign concept is to be born and raised within that particular language-culture.
The people who say concepts are untranslatable don't understand English or the concept very well.
In physics, if you cannot explain the idea to the bartender, then YOU don't understand it. You don't get to blame the bartender.
One of the first people to comment on the Nature article has it right. The definition of "jargon" being used here is incorrect, so the article comes off, to me, as fussy straw man b.s. Terms that help you define, for example, a phenomenon specific to your discipline are not at all necessarily jargon. Jargon is calling your laboratory a "lab," or saying 'we did 17 "runs" of an assay to confirm our results.' Jargon refers to the terms you do not use when you publish a formal paper because -- they're informal.
I thought that was journalism 101. If you are writing an article for a science mag then it better be filled with the scientific terminology used by the audience expected to read the magazine. If you dumb down the scientific jargon into layman's terms then you are going to lose credibility with your target audience.
On the other hand if you are writing about Higg's Boson in Reader's Digest then by all means revert to expressing science by turning distances into a measurement of football fields, volume in terms of Olympic sized swimming pools, and speeds in terms of Nascar racing with gobs of references to Star Trek and Star Wars.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.