Busting Jargon. Tactics for Comprehensible Communication in Science

As a scientist, you regularly communicate your expertise to various audiences – not only to people from within your scientific community but also to collaborators from different fields, grant bodies, students, the general public. When writing for or speaking to others, however, you must overcome multiple obstacles for your message to be understood, such as peoples’ short attention span, differences in prior knowledge and ignorance about your technical language. If you do not design your communication with these barriers in mind, your ideas are unlikely to reach your intended audience.