It’s only Saturday and already I’m looking for english to make me feel better. I found How to Use Trackback and Pingback to Get More Links and Traffic And I’m looking forward again, thanks!……

Excellent advice. I’m going to post a link of this Greenversations Science Wednesday: Translating Science into … articles about environmental science articles on my blackboard website on Tuesday for my students. Everything you said works for discuss…

We also have the same concern when it comes to medical lingo. In an article in cbc news: a new study found that using complicated medical jargon can be confusing, anxiety inducing and potentially dangerous for patients. An example given is when you tell a patient, “You have a benign lesion on your liver.” The person might only hear the words “lesion” and “liver,” and assume they have a dire condition.

These jargons often alarm people over harmless things. Their health would be more at risk due to added strain and tension when not construed.

Regards,
California health insurance

http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2008/07/29/tell-me-a-story/

I make my living almost EXACTLY the way you do. And I’ve been doing it for about 25 years. For the past 12 years, I’ve been reporting on EPA rules, policies, reports, guidance, etc., etc., for my readership. (In addition to the output of other federal agencies, states, and industry and environmental organizations.) Our readership is professional so I probably don’t have to simplify the technical language as much as you do. But our publication prides itself on rendering techno-speak into something more akin to business-speak.

I often ask myself if it is possible in what I do to be both clear and accurate. I’ve decided that in most cases it is not. “Simplifying” a scientific concept or practice by re-writing or condensing the original language that describes that concept or practice is by necessity creating a gap, and sometimes a very wide gap, between the reader and the science. Hard science can be spoken about in generalizations that are probably true. Or perhaps is more correct to say they are not “untrue.” But when one ponders all that is left out in these generalizations and simplifications, it is really absurd to say that what we are writing is “accurate.”

The goals, as I see it, are to be careful to not say things that are incorrect, to find those parts of the original document that are easily comprehensible and reuse them, and to be eternally grateful for executive summaries and those wonderful fact sheets and FAQs that federal agencies generate. And, if you are responsible for any fact sheets or FAQs, I’d like to thank you personally.