Writing and Speaking With Industry Jargon Considered

Whenever one is writing or speaking it becomes readily apparent extremely quickly, regardless of the area of science, industry, or topic that the readers or listeners come from various levels of knowledge in the field. Obviously, it serves no purpose to talk or write over people's heads. Likewise it only detracts from the author or speaker to talk down to the student, reader, or audience.

Okay so, how do you talk to a broader audience, but ensure you are not boring the experts, or flying over the heads of the others?

Now then, having written a number of industry articles and also spoken to far more groups than I care to remember - I suppose the technique I like best is to put it like this (example):

"The US Navy along with the top university research teams have come a long way in the development of UUV's (underwater unmanned vehicles) over the last decade."

By clarifying the term or acronym early, it allows for those in the industry, or the experts to read through it, and those who are not in the industry to at least follow along even though they are a novice. Plus, it allows the new comers to learn a new term and assists them, bringing them up to speed on the industry jargon. The same technique tends to work very well with large audiences and you are less apt to see, blank stares peering back at you.

This is what I typically do, and although readers rarely give me feedback on this particular technique, I can safely say that I personally appreciate it when other authors of research papers, technical pieces, and industry articles do the same, especially when I am studying a new topic.

Okay, realize also that you don't want to use the long version in every sentence or repeat it too often, but it also makes sense if you have an extremely large audience reading your article, essay, or listening to your talk, YouTube video, or lecture to make mention of the term's meaning along the way again, somewhere in the middle, especially if you are introducing a whole host of industry type jargon in your speech or writing.

It is only fair to your audience that you do this, and frankly, you'd want them to do the same if they were teaching you a new topic as well. Meanwhile, as long as you keep it brief you will not alienate the other experts or your peers in using this strategy. Indeed, I hope you will please consider all this.