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.'"

Comments

Yes, absolutely

[the_humeister]

But first, please stop using "God particle", which is not jargon. It is just stupid.

Re:Yes, absolutely

[Tr3vin]

"God particle" comes from Leon Lederman. He wanted to nickname the Higgs boson the "goddamn particle", but was blocked by his editor. So while it is annoying, it did come from a prominent physicist.

Link to article

[mt42]

Link to Nature article http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/487407a (no paywall).

Should journalists understand what they write?

[Agent.Nihilist]

Should journalists understand what they write?
I mean really, what possible purpose could understanding the topic of conversation possibly contribute?

Re:Should journalists understand what they write?

[TubeSteak]

... I wouldn't have known that the article I was reading was even remotely linked to the case I had spent the day watching. It was that far removed from reality.

Try listening to a Congressional hearing on C-SPAN and then read whatever the newspapers write about it the next day.
It's like someone condensed War and Peace into Goodnight Moon.

Re:Speak the Reader's Language

[icebike]

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.

There is nothing wrong with educating the reader. In fact, I was under the (apparently mistaken) impression that was the whole point of writing.

When an author needs to explain parts of some THING or some THEORY, using the terms that the reader is likely to encounter in further reading is of benefit to the reader, and shouldn't be avoided. Nothing wrong with explaining your terms. Nothing wrong with providing a quick glossary/appendix (or links thereto) either.

No scientist or college course explained to me what Ullage Motors were. Walter Cronkite did.

Re:How to use the DOI system ?

[mt42]

I'm afraid the DOI system doesn't actually bypass any paywalls. I was simply noting that this particular article was publicly available (most Nature articles are not). A DOI is just a persistent, unique "digital object identifier". It is now extremely common for academic journal articles to have a DOI assigned to them. The DOI for an article remains constant, and resolution from the DOI to the current URL at which the article can be found is handled by the DOI resolution system. The DOI for this article is 10.1038/487407a, and one way to resolve it is to prefix it with 'http://dx.doi.org/'. If you want to read more about DOIs, there is plenty of information at http://www.doi.org./

Re:It will get worse

[Mateorabi]

Only someone with a p-brane would think that was funny.