It’s great to have a large vocabulary and be able to trot out a semi-obscure word on occasion, especially at cocktail parties or if you’re trying to impress someone on a date.
But when it comes to the public-facing written documents for your utility, you should think otherwise.
Big words make your writing seem clunky and add to the possibility that it is misunderstood (I first wrote “misconstrued” instead of “misunderstood,” but the first word might be unfamiliar to a person or two).
Big words also make your writing longer, which is the enemy of any writer who’s trying to maintain the audience’s attention. That’s why “buy” is better than “purchase” and “use” is better than “utilize,” to give two examples.
As an employee of a utility (or any business, for that matter), you probably use a lot of industry jargon throughout the work day. And that’s fine when you’re talking to Stan from accounting, Shelley from HR or Rodney from field operations. They know what you’re talking about.
The general public most likely doesn’t know what that jargon means – and you should probably limit it as much as possible even when communicating with coworkers.
Unfortunately, I often see public communications from outfits of all stripes that aren’t written with John Q. Public in mind.
There’s a simple answer to this problem: Always assume the public has no idea what you’re talking about and use the plainest langue possible.
From working in the media since the end of the Ronald Reagan era, I can assure you that if there’s a chance for the public to be confused, it will likely happen.
Even reporters, who theoretically should be good at comprehension, tend to get confused. This won’t be a problem for your trade publication reporters and utility beat reporters at the largest media outlets, but in this day and age, most of the reporters covering you wouldn’t know a kilowatt-hour from a load factor.
Since the goal of all media communication is to get your point across, you’re diminishing the impact of your work if you’re not speaking plainly.
That also begs the question: How can you tell if the aforementioned John Q. Public understands what you’ve written.
Give the material to someone who works outside the utility industry to read – your significant other might be a good choice. If they understand what you’ve written, it’s probably safe to assume that the material is effective. If not, revise the wording and try again.
Note: Plain wording doesn’t necessarily mean you’re dumbing down the content. Perhaps that’s part of it, but even complex topics can be explained in a relatively simple manner.
When it comes to writing, there are other things that you can do to improve the clarity of your work.
An easy one is to run your work through something like the free version of Grammarly, which can pick up typos and wordy phrases.
Don’t fall into the trap of randomly capitalizing words to make them seem more important. This trend has gathered steam in recent years, but it serves no real purpose, will get removed by journalists and, when the public sees it, may only get folks confused.
The same goes for the excessive use of exclamation points. They should be used sparingly, if at all. The inclusion of exclamation points seems to cheapen the value of what you’re saying by artificially attempting to make it seem more important than it is.
And the same is true for internet lingo, texting abbreviations and any other alterations of common English. Save that stuff for your personal social media.
As far as writing is concerned, you can increase comprehension by keeping your paragraphs short. Long blocks of text can cause a reader to lose interest.
Each paragraph should contain a single thought. It’s OK to have one-sentence paragraphs; limit yourself to three or four sentences.
While it may seem counterintuitive, you might enjoy a bigger impact if you keep your material short. You probably don’t need to be comprehensive with what you write. The longer you take to make your points, the more readers drop off.
To show that I practice what I preach, I’m stopping here. I could make more, less-impactful points, but you should get the gist.