[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Legalese: (Was Run-on sentences)

[Amanda Geist]

Forgive me if any of these points have been made earlier, but I have a
little time and thought to weigh in.

Carol: 
Here's an example of jargon (not legalese but educationalese) from a handout
for class I once took in Reading Education. (I now understand why I don't
recall a single thing I "learned" in that class:

"Inferential comprehension [is] demonstrated when [a] student uses the ideas
and information explicitly stated in a selection, his intuition, and his
personal experience as a basis for conjectures and hypotheses. Inferences
drawn may be either convergent or divergent in nature and [the] student may
or may not be asked to verbalize the rationale underlying his inferences."

Amanda:  If we have been using “jargon” to mean “the technical usages and
terms specific to a particular field or discipline,” then I observe that
there is not a single word in that example that is jargon.  They are simply
very large words, doubtless inaccessible to your “average” reader.  I
disagree that big words, in and of themselves, constitute “educationalese.”
If the example had included true field-specific words such as “transfer” or
“formative evaluation,” then I could agree with your categorization.  So,
while the passage is not very clear, its problem is not jargon so much as
complex sentence structure and a very high language level.  

Carol:
But jargon is *needlessly* complicated language. 

Amanda:  And here is where our point of dissention lies.  This is not my
definition of “jargon”; that is my definition of poor writing.  I will never
argue with you that there is a growing trend to overuse words to sound
self-aggrandizing or important.  Your examples of that sort of writing
mistake are spot-on.  But those are not jargon, to me.  In fact, the case
could be made that you, as an editor, are using the term “jargon” in a
professionally specific way-- in which case, by my definition, you have been
using jargon yourself. 

That was not meant as a “gotcha”-- it was meant as an example.  We apply
different meanings to the same term, hence the need for clarification.  One
of the most common derailers of effective communication is an assumption of
shared meaning where there are, in fact, multiple interpretations possible.
To ensure clarity of meaning, sometimes more specific “technical” terms must
be used, particularly in the technical, legal, medical, and scientific
fields.

Which brings me to another relevant point.  This whole discussion seems to
have been built on an assumption that the intended audiences, for any and
all examples cited, are “the average reader.”  That is not always the case.
If the intended audience will be familiar with the technical terminology
(jargon), then it should indeed be used, because within that particular
field or discipline, the use of the correct technical terms *increases*
precision in the delivery of that message.  Effective communication doesn’t
mean “making it clear for the average reader”—it means “making it clear for
the intended audience.”  

Carol: However, it's interesting that many scientists (not Stephen Hawking!)
manage to escape the shackles of scientific terminology and write beautiful
books for the general public. They don't sacrifice precision for
intelligibility. They manage both, sometimes admirably. 

Amanda:  You illustrate my point.  Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan both are
very good at delivering their messages to their intended audiences.
Sometimes those audiences were the general public, and the books they
produced for that audience were clear, accessible, and enjoyable.  However,
I imagine that the papers, articles, and books that they authored for other
audiences--their colleagues and other scientists--were quite different and
highly technical in nature.  The latter were probably full of “my” jargon
(discipline-specific technical terminology), but I very much doubt if they
were full of “your” jargon (unnecessary words or phrases, clichés, and the
like).  

Good authors use language effectively, whomever they are writing for.  Less
skilled authors do not.  Jargon is simply one tool available to authors; in
the hands of the skilled, it is effective; in the hands of the less skilled,
it is obstructive.  

~Amanda

 



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