Using jargon is tricky territory. On the one hand, reading it can feel trite. On the other, it might explain your idea best. So when is a good time to pull off the specialized language?
If you’re writing for a general audience who come from various fields, leave the jargon out of your copy. Read by the unfamiliar, it can be confusing and can lead to severely misconstrued points. Similarly, when you’re composing for an audience of non-native English speakers, even if they’re from the same field, jargons should be dropped entirely. A common parlance in your industry may not be part of their vocabulary just yet – best not take the risk of alienating your audience.
Jargons, to put it simply, are hard to pull off. Anytime you use them, you put your copy at risk of looking like pretentious patter, no matter how well your grammar software has tuned it into shape. If you’re writing on a subject that you are not a real expert in, much of your jargon use will likely be massive failures that can leave you red in the face.
As such, the only time you should even consider treading jargon territory is when:
1. You know the subject like the back of your hand
2. Your audience knows the same subject like the back of their respective hands
In this scenario, spelling out what should be common knowledge may just irritate your readers – keeping in the jargon should work well enough.
Tags: jargon, using jargon
