Page 67 - The Voice of Authority

client in the IT department of an energy company explains
this as the key discriminator in hiring outside contractors
to write software documentation for them. “If we ask them
to come in and learn an in-house program and they can
write a page or two of documentation in plain English, we
figure they understand the program pretty well. But if we
ask them to write us a page or two of sample documenta-
tion, and they send us something filled with jargon, we
know they don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.”

Intimidation

Have you ever called a lawyer to ask a technical question
and had him or her beat you up with the answer? That is,
the lawyer rattles off an an-
swer as if lecturing a group
of graduate students ready Have you ever noticed
to take the bar exam? Did that the smaller the idea,
you ask a second question? the bigger the words used
Many people don’t—and to express it?
that’s the idea behind the —Anonymous
use of jargon as a tool for
intimidation. The game
goes like this: “When I can’t out-reason you, I can out-buzz
you, so you don’t understand what the heck I said.”

Use Plain English

If a phrase starts to roll off your tongue, shut your mouth;
consider it a cliché—probably a phrase so overused that
the meaning has long since been lost. Instead, aim for orig-
inality and specificity. For starters, here’s a list of bureau-
cratic buzzwords that muddy messages and mar your im-
age as a clear communicator and straight shooter:

Is It Clear? 55