4.4 Plain Language

This section defines plain language, jargon, acronyms, tone, and inclusive language.

How should you use plain language, jargon, and acronyms?

Plain language is clear, concise, audience forward content written in the simplest terms.  Plain language avoids wordy phrases, unnecessary words and prepositional phrases, and awkward sentence constructions which could be confusing to the audience.

Plain language allows for your document to be accessible to your audience; in fact, the US government has passed a law called the Plain Writing Act of 2010 requiring governmental agencies to write documents in plain language to make the content accessible to all Americans.

Jargon, on the other hand, is an industry specific specialized language, which only people within that industry would easily understand.  Clearly, if you are writing to an audience of industry experts, then jargon should be included.  Again, you must consider your audience, but if you do include jargon, include definitions in the text as well as an extensive glossary to help with audience comprehension.

Just be mindful that the inaccessibility of specialized language not only affects those with disabilities, but also those in a lower economic and educational positions, minorities, and English language learners thereby further marginalizing those who are already invisible.

Lastly, you may also want to use abbreviations for concepts, governmental agencies, and companies, which are called acronyms. When you include acronyms in your text, state the full phrase first and put the acronym in parenthesis, and then after that, only include the acronym. For example, writing tutorials is part of technical communication (TC).  TC is writing clear, concise content for specific audiences and for specific purposes.

What tone and word choice should you use?

Tone is the emotion the document is conveying which is achieved through your word choice, and your attitude toward the topic, audience, and yourself. Tone can include word choices that illustrate “respect,” “professionalism,” “contempt,” “arrogance,” or even “self-awareness” and can be “manipulate[d] … for effect” through “ethos and pathos” (Jones, 2018).

Since you are writing a professional document, you should choose words that are accurate, precise, and avoid emotional connotations which could affect the audience.  You want to be as clear and professional as possible to practice how you will represent your company in the future. Use gender neutral terms, and non-biased phrasing.

You should also avoid figurative language, such as metaphors, hyperbole, and similes.  Since you are writing as clearly and concisely as possible, you need to focus on word choice that says or describes exactly what you mean.  Figurative language allows for creativity but also significant misinterpretation, which you want to avoid. Figurative language is also somewhat informal and affects the overall tone of your document.

Inclusive language

Your document should employ language that is inclusive and unbiased.  Your inclusive language should avoid racism, ageism, ableism, genderism and sexism, and should instead illustrate cultural awareness, equity, diversity, and human rights.  You should call individuals by the terms they call themselves and use respectful words in your documents (American Psychological Association, 2024).

All students, but especially those in technical communication who write documentation, “need to know how to avoid sexist language, be aware of the challenges in addressing multicultural audiences, and know about corporate culture, corporate branding, and how to meet their employer’s explicit as well as implicit expectations for professional behavior” (Jones, 2013) to avoid offending audiences and tarnishing a company’s reputation.

The words you choose matter.  How you describe people, actions, and attitudes matter. For example, should you use “man,” “gentleman,” “dude,” “bro,” “bruh,” “sir,” or “person?”  What mood does each of these terms convey to an audience? “Gentleman” and “sir” seem overly formal and outdated while “dude,” “bro,” and “bruh” are the opposite as they are much too informal.  “Man” seems the best choice, but “person” is gender neutral and may be a better choice in most circumstances.

According to the office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Western University (n.d.), “Language is not just words. It portrays a vision of the world, and the words, whether spoken or written, can touch people’s lives in positive ways, but they can also be harmful.” It is vital that you do not harm your company nor your users in any way.