Web Design and Development
Are You Speaking A Language Your Readers Understand?
We all have a tendency to use acronyms, abbreviations, and technical jargon when writing articles, all without ever explaining what they mean. The result? We end up alienating our readers. Here are a few ways to stop speaking Greek and start speaking a language that your readers understand.
1. Ditch Acronyms and Abbreviations
It is so tempting to use acronyms and abbreviations, after all, typing "SEO" is much easier than typing "search engine optimization". But asBarbara of Blogging Without A Blog writes:
When I read a blog that is filled with undefined acronyms I feel intimidated. I feel I’m being excluded. I often leave the blog without commenting and rarely go back.
Clearly, we don’t want our visitors to feel this way!
But there are times when you can use acronyms and abbreviations, such as:
- when acronyms have already been explained earlier in an article, explicitly or in parenthesis
- if you reference a footnote which contains further explanation
- if users can hover over a word to get a definition (For WordPress users, see the Acronyms or Tool Tipper plugins.)
2. Save Advanced Vocabulary For Print
While you might have a stellar vocabulary, the web is not the place to show it off. After all, most of us blog for the masses which include people of all ages and educational backgrounds. And let us not forget all of the people out there who speak English as a second language.
So when writing, be sure to keep it simple.
3. Improve Grammar and Spelling
Last, but not least, it is important to have good grammar and spelling. In addition to giving your articles more credibility, good grammar and proper spelling also ensure that what you write can be easily understood.
So, are you speaking a language that your readers understand? Is this even a concern for your blog?
Tags: blogs, content, grammar, spelling18 Responses to “Are You Speaking A Language Your Readers Understand?”
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For obvious reasons, I’m too making every possible effort to speak in beginners’ language.
And since English is my own native language, I’m too feeling pretty excluded when I’m reading an article written in Shakespheare-style.
Yan
This is an interesting issue. Hopefully till now all blog which I am still reading do talk in a non-alien language.
Its true.. even if i happen to go to a blog and I see that the blogger is talking in a far too difficult to understand language, its highly probable that I wont visit the blog again.
Concerning my blog, I at time write some part of the post in Mauritian Creole language which is a sort of modified french.
At times I also use some french but then I try to place the english meaning after it. On the other side I still have some problems with the acronyms. One little example.. it was when I first started blogging (an old blog which i closed now) someone had use the word OMG. I kept wondering what the hell was OMG: Open Magnetic Gradient?? LOL. Now I know what it is but there are many people who are casual readers just looking for some information and they will be afraid of such alien words
OMG as in Open Magnetic Gradient? That’s a good one, Kurt. Oh, what does that mean anyway?
Yan
@Yan, Good one. Thou Shall Blog.
Yes, there have been some blogs that have forced me to go to the dictionary, more than once in a single article!
@Kurt, that’s funny. OMG. haha. And, that you would think that it represented Open Magnetic Gradient is equally funny. Those words are more intimidating than the acronym! I would hope to never have to read an article with those words in them!
Thanks for sharing.
I actually just read a guest post on someones blog yesterday and at the end of the post I couldn’t even leave a comment as I was so confused and the topic was so far over my head. From the other comments that I read I think that most felt the same way but didn’t want to admit it and look silly.
New information should be new but easily digestable, not make your head hurt.
As far as the grammar and spelling go- you have my thumbs up on that. I have a post I wrote about spelling that I had put on a social site I belong to and was amazed at the amount of people who said that they thought spelling and grammar errors made the article more real- just makes it sloppy to me. (not that I never have mistakes but I try to proofread)
Thanks for another great post.
@Jen, yes that’s a good point. Reading articles online SHOULD by enjoyable.
As for the grammar and spelling, I have yet to hear someone say that mistakes make an article more personable… But like you, I think I’ll stick with proofreading.
I cannot agree with you more. Being a tech blogger, I tend to throw in lots of jargons without realizing that many might not even have a clue about it.
@Raju, oh yeh. We all do it. In our day-to-date lives, we generally communicate with other ‘experts’ who know the same lingo that we know. So when blogging, its so easy to throw in our jargon without ever realizing what we are doing.
One reader recently reminded me of this when he commented on an article, and told me that he didn’t know what SEO (search engine optimization) stood for. I hastily updated the article.
Such a good post! I make at least 2 out of those three mistakes on my blog, which you pointed out..haha. Since that comment from you, I’ve made a consistent effort to write in simpler terms. Read somewhere that the New York Times write their articles at an 8th grade level, and most bloggers should not have any reason not to follow the same guideline.
@TrainWreckIdeas. That’s an interesting statistic. But I guess the NYT is aiming for maximum readership, so they are shooting at the nation’s average reading level.
Btw, I am glad that my words could have such an effect.
funny thing is i am Greek and i could read the image and i was like “what the…?” i think you have some points there though i must slightly disagree with point 2. i think that a good use of your vocabulary and being rich in words is good. it’s note nice using the same words in a different way to express your self. i am not talking about writing in a scientific way but i think that having a rich vocabulary is nice and doesn’t make people bored reading…
@stratos, In the future, I will be sure to use a dead language like Latin.
Yes, it is important to have good and varied vocabulary, but at the same time, I think that it is important that people can easily understand it. After all, its never fun to read something that you don’t comprehend because the words are all ‘over your head’.
But you’re right. It is boring when people use the same words over and over and over again.
Again a nice post, for #1, I always put the shortform and longform in brackets beside it.
for #2, english is not a native language. this helps me write post in beginners english
@Nihar, yes that’s a very good practice. I typically try to do that as well.
I would add that it’s a good idea to liberally link Wikipedia entries for any terms or abbreviations that a visitor might not be aware of.
@Pinny, indeed. You can’t use Wikipedia too much!
Haha, you’re right. I get alittle irritated with people using short forms as well. Because what you see may not be what others perceive. Be wary when you use shortcuts!
@Ben: Indeed. I have had to do research at times to figure out what some people were talking about!