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

[Amanda Geist]

Sorry, Carol, I’ve been very busy and didn’t see your response.

Amanda:
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. <snip>

Carol:
And by my definition, I'd be using a technical term, which is *not* jargon.
However, I don't agree that it's a technical term. It's a perfectly common
word. If you like, I can substitute another term, "gobbledygook," but
"jargon" is shorter, more familiar, and easier to type.

Amanda responds:  It’s a perfectly common word, but in my professional
circles and the general usage I encounter, “jargon” is used to mean terms of
art for a particular profession—something only practitioners would easily
recognize—and as such, is “written around” when communicating to audiences
other than practitioners.  I therefore retract my initial observation,
because you are using it in a way that has a specific meaning for you, but
which is not the primary meaning I have seen associated with the term in my
experience.  We probably have to agree to disagree on this one.

Amanda:
> 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:
Technical terms may, in some cases, increase precision in communications
between one specialist and another. Jargon, however, is imprecise by its
very nature. And that includes unnecessary pseudo-technical terms like
"convergent and divergent inferences" or, in literary criticism,
"logocentrism" and "intertextuality").

Amanda responds:  Whether or not a usage is “unnecessary” is subjective, and
ultimately the decision of the author.  An editor’s job is advisory, even a
substantive or developmental editor’s.  The “pseudo” technical terms you
have cited may be precisely what is called for, depending on what the
document is and who the intended audience is.  Or they may be inflated
language or pomposity.  As an editor, you cannot dismiss them out of hand
without considering the context of each document.  

Amanda: 
> Good authors use language effectively, whomever they are writing for. Less
skilled authors do not.

Carol:
Of course. I'm an editor. My whole job is to make ineffective writing by
unskilled writers effective and publishable. We agree that good writing is
effective. Where we obviously disagree is in what constitutes effective
writing.

Amanda responds:  I see no basis for your conclusion here.  I was not
defending the examples you cited; if the audience for those was truly the
“general public,” their content is rather inaccessible.  

I am a technical editor by profession, and my job is to ensure clear
delivery of an effective message from the author to the intended audience.
That intended audience varies greatly, as do the types of documents.  I,
like most editors, use my own comprehension and perceptions of clarity as a
starting point, but other considerations apply.  My observations to authors
sometimes include the caveat, “This was my perception, and here is a
suggested revision—but I may have altered your intended meaning.  If your
intended audience would have understood, or you had used this phrasing
deliberately, ignore the edit, or contact me to discuss the perception.”  At
the end of the day, it is the *audience’s* filter that will direct the
decision, not the editor’s.  Just because I didn’t understand it, doesn’t
mean an intended audience won’t.  My job is to point out the potential, and
if the author agrees, to help address it.

Amanda:
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. 

Carol:

You mean that technical terminology is one tool available to writers aiming
at a particular audience of specialists. And certainly, nonspecialists
should not attempt to use those terms, not only because they don't
understand them and may use them imprecisely but because their audience
won't understand them, either, and will be further confused by their misuse.
But that's not what I'm talking about.

Amanda responds:  Sometimes it is inevitable that technical terms must be
included in material for the general public.  For example, fact sheets from
the government explaining environmental cleanup.  Those are often written to
the eighth-grade level, but the subject matter is technical.  There is a
balance that must be struck between technical accuracy and precision on the
one hand, and what the audience can understand, on the other.  Too often,
trying to explain a technical term only introduces more “technicality,”
while putting everything too simply alters the message.  That is where the
skill of an editor comes in, helping to connect the author’s expertise with
the audience’s understanding—to make the communication as effective as it
can be, given the context of the document.

Carol:  I'm attacking what you call bad writing and what I call jargon or
gobbledygook, which (as I know from my experience as an editor) is only one
of many forms of bad writing. (I also encounter mechanical errors,
second-language errors, clichés, mixed metaphors, dangling modifiers,
misused words, and a host of other problems).

Amanda responds:  One need not be an editor to know multiple forms of bad
writing.  I just am very careful to avoid a “trench mentality” with authors.
They are professionals, as am I, and we each bring our own expertise to the
document.  I don’t expect them to be highly skilled writers, just as they
don’t expect me to be a highly skilled whatever they may be.  I’m not there
to condemn their writing failures (although I’ll admit the entertainment
value can be high at times).  It is a partnership. 

Carol, who is not opposed to legitimate technical terminology in its proper
place but is always opposed to imprecision, pomposity, pseudo-scholarship,
vagueness, and dullness

Amanda responds:  I think I’m reacting to a perception I’ve been picking up
from you on this thread, of “I know better than them.”  It may not have been
intentional on your part.  My point is that condemning authors isn’t the
most effective way to improve their writing.  Any editor should share their
perceptions of the things you mention, to offer the author a potential
audience reaction and give them the opportunity to correct it.  But at the
end of the day, whether a technical usage is “legitimate,” whether
scholarship is “pseudo,” etc., is not truly the editor’s call, and the
author is not necessarily wrong for disagreeing with us.   

~Amanda





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