Writing for the web course participants’ guide

Use everyday words

Summary: Choose everyday words your audience will readily understand.

Don’t use buzzwords or gobbledygook

Buzzwords are fashionable words or phrases. Business language is full of buzzwords. Some examples include ‘paradigm shift’, ‘growth headwinds’, ‘low-hanging fruit’, ‘touchpoints’ and ‘corporate synergy’.

Gobbledygook is conflated, pretentious, often unintelligible language. And it can be found in government reports. See the italicised text in the last example below.

Avoid idioms

Idioms are phrases that don’t mean what the words in the phrase literally mean. Some examples include: 'on the same page', 'belt tightening', 'rally the troops'. These are challenging for people who speak English as a second language, and anyone who hasn’t heard the idiom before.

Only use jargon for technical audiences

Avoid jargon unless your target audience is familiar with it.

Before After - more everyday
convene meet, bring together
accentuate stress, highlight
pavement road surface
hypertension high blood pressure
onboarding orientation, introduction
To achieve the agency’s business priorities, we facilitate the delivery of integrated solutions in tandem with government agencies and the private sector. To achieve the agency’s business priorities, we work with government agencies and the private sector

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