To Communicate Science, First Lose the Jargon. Here's how.

Effective communication of science requires that scientists reach out to a variety of audiences. First we need to communicate our research to other scientists, both in and out of our fields of study ("scientific communication"). But we also need to communicate to policymakers, to the media, and to the public ("science communication"). For these latter three, one of my previous suggestions was to "drop the jargon." Now there is a tool to help you do that.

The term "jargon" is in itself jargon. Jargon is defined as "special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group and are difficult for others to understand." Both astronomers and oncologists use their own jargon, much of which sounds like gibberish to the other professional. Just think how it sounds to the general public.


Scientists at two Israeli universities have come up with something they call a De-Jargonizing program. In a nutshell, it automatically identifies words that are jargon, that is, that are likely to be unknown by the general population. Once identified, the buzz words can be replaced with more comprehensible language. 

The best part about the de-jargonizer is that it is freely available to anyone at no charge. Go to this URL:

scienceandpublic.com 


Upload your file or manually type in your passage. Press "Start" and you'll see what terms you'll have to edit. 

The importance of de-jargonizing cannot be stressed enough. The study concluded that no more than 2% of the words in summaries should be classified as "jargon" if you want non-experts to understand. But the average abstract in PLOS Computational Biology, a peer-reviewed but open-access journal available online to the public, contained 10% jargon. Even the summaries intentionally written to communicate the study to non-expert audiences averaged 8% jargon, far above the recommended 2%. Other journals were even worse.

Using jargon in journal articles intended for other experts in the same field is both appropriate and necessary for precise communication of study details. But scientists today must also consider how the results of their study fit into the overall communication of important issues to the public. As this page has repeatedly noted, there are people and organizations who intentionally mislead the public by misrepresenting scientific research. Therefore, it is critical that all scientists ensure their study findings and methods are accurately reported. And for the policymakers, the media, and the public that means losing the jargon that confuses more than informs. The de-jargonizer can help you do that.

more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-08-de-jargonizing-decode-science.html#jCp

esearchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and HIT–Holon Institute of Technology have created a program that automatically identifies terms the average person may not know. In a recent paper published in PLOS One, the free of charge and scientist-friendly De-Jargonizer hosted at scienceandpublic.com is introduced.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-08-de-jargonizing-decode-science.html#jCp

esearchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and HIT–Holon Institute of Technology have created a program that automatically identifies terms the average person may not know. In a recent paper published in PLOS One, the free of charge and scientist-friendly De-Jargonizer hosted at scienceandpublic.com is introduced.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-08-de-jargonizing-decode-science.html#jCp