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Death to Jargon

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With the aim of improving our service and our efficiency, the circulation area ... Sign in to see if her books are overdue. Find hours, locations, and events ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Death to Jargon


1
Death to Jargon
  • K.G. Schneider, Fall 2007

2
What is Jargon?
  • A vocabulary common to a particular field of
    work or group of people.
  • In our field, also known as Biblish

3
Jargon is everywhere
  • Digital camera software
  • Are you sure you want to acquire the photos?
  • preparing for acquisition

4
Why do we hate jargon?
  • Vague sense that jargon stands between us and
    them
  • Most bad customer service experiences involve
    jargon at some point in the transaction
  • Jargon sucks the air out of language, making life
    less pleasurable

5
We know it when we see it
  • "Leverage our leadership brands and
    authoritative proprietary content to deliver
    innovative solutions orientated products that
    become embedded in customers' workflows and
    enable Reed Elsevier to move up the value
    chain."Source  the 2006 Reed Elsevier Annual
    Review and Summary (p. 15)http//www.reed-elsevie
    r.com/media/pdf/l/l/reed_anrev_2006_en_1.pdf

6
Translation
  • Weve got you where we want you. Now pay up!

7
and see it
  • Coordinating and optimizing the symbiosis
    between the computers mania for detail and the
    humans sense of the gestalt becomes more
    important every day, as more and more of the
    cultural record becomes digital, and yet our
    instruments for exploring that digital cultural
    record remain the blunt instruments of searching
    and browsing, Unsworth said.

8
Translation
  • We need better search engines.

9
and SEE it
  • With the aim of improving our service and our
    efficiency, the circulation area at the Main
    Library will be remodeled for better patron
    accessibility and oriented toward increased
    self-checkout options. To this end were adding
    two more self-checkout stations, for a total of
    four. Well have the same number of
    circulation clerks

10
Translation
  • Soon youll be able to check out books twice as
    fast! Were doubling the number of check-out
    machines. Excuse our dust while we remodel.

11
Glossaries are a bad sign
  • If you have to explain it with a glossary, then
    you need to rewrite it
  • Nobody reads help pages!

12
Academicspeak deserves special mention
  • Scholarly communication
  • Electronic resource management
  • Institutional repository
  • No library user should ever be exposed to such
    gobbledygook!

13
Silence does not equal success
  • An outcome-oriented approach to evaluating this
    objective is an outcome-oriented qualitative
    approach to determine if awareness of lii.org
    services
  • I wrote this in a (winning) grant!

14
Attention spans aremercilessly short
  • What users actually do most of the time (if
    were lucky) is glance at each new page, scan
    some of the text, and click on the first link
    that catches their interest or vaguely resembles
    the thing theyre looking for. There are usually
    large parts of the page that they dont even look
    at.
  • Steven Krug, Dont Make Me Think

15
We know jargon is bad
So lets kill it!
16
Obstacles
  • Fear of stepping on toes
  • Resistance to change (no one has complained!)
  • Everyones busythe value of taking more time
    with language may not be evident

17
Suggestions
  • Start small
  • Begin with yourself
  • Demonstrate success
  • Be gentle communication is a sensitive area

18
1. Assume all writing is bad until proven
otherwise
  • Theyre called first drafts for a reason
  • See Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, on sy first
    drafts (an entire chapter on this topic)

19
2. Hunt down and kill all terms users dont
understand
  • Citation
  • Database
  • E-journals
  • Finding aid
  • Index
  • Interlibrary Loan
  • Online
  • Periodical
  • Reference
  • Resource
  • Serial
  • Subject
  • Virtual

20
The subject of subject
  • Huge gulf between our understanding of the term
    and our users understanding of the term
  • A major single point of failure in user searches

21
Link
22
3. Use terms your users do understand
  • Terms most often cited as being understood well
    enough to foster correct choices by users
    Find books, Find articles, and other
    combinations using natural language target
    words
  • Kupersmith, 2007

23
Link
24
4. Think like a user
  • The user is focused on action (not on tools). She
    wants to
  • Find books and articles
  • Answer a question
  • Sign in to see if her books are overdue
  • Find hours, locations, and events
  • Pay fines, renew books, place holds

25
What a user would not think
  • Im going to use Boolean operators to search
    Widgmo for several known bibliographic items and
    then proceed to the circulation desk near the
    technical services area

26
5. Write in an active voice
  • Its harder to use jargon when you write in an
    active voice
  • Try rephrasing sentences and phrases in an active
    voice
  • NYPL Find Books
  • SFPL Get a library card

27
6. Use Questions and Orders(Interrogatives and
Imperatives)
  • Grab the readers brain stemforce him to
    respond
  • Find...
  • Do you...?
  • Have you...?
  • Renew...
  • Harder to phrase questions and orders with jargon

28
7. Read your work out loud
  • All Together Now
  • An outcome-oriented approach to evaluating this
    objective is an outcome-oriented qualitative
    approach to determine if awareness of lii.org
    services

29
8. Avoid cliches and popular expressions
  • Treasure-trove
  • Goldmine

30
9. Get to the point, then stop
  • Most library writing is bad in part because its
    so darn wordy
  • Wordiness leaves room for jargon to sneak in!
  • Screenwriting advice In late and out early
  • Librarian-to-librarian advice weed your writing
    so the good stuff stands out
  • Link LibraryThing

31
10. Have noncombatants read your writing
  • Spouses bad
  • Siblings good
  • Library frequent flyers bad
  • Library chippers good
  • Grocery clerks, gardeners, electricians terrific

32
11. First, tell a story
  • Sit down in a quiet room and describe whats
    going on from the users point of view.
  • Susan walks into the library. She wants a book.
    Real bad. So bad she can taste it. But she forgot
    her card
  • Link

33
12. Read!
  • The best antidote to jargon is to read good
    writing.
  • You can even listen to good writing.

34
Kupersmith Kondensed
  • Test.
  • Avoid terms users dont understand.
  • Use terms users do understand.
  • Explain confusing terms.
  • If you absolutely must, present an intermediate
    page.
  • Provide many ways to do the same thing.
  • Be consistent, especially with special terms.

35
Two Simple, CheapTest Methods
  • Run the content past people unfamiliar with
    libraries
  • Look at your website and OPAC search logs
  • Your OPAC probably doesnt have search logs one
    more reason OPACs suck
  • And outside LibraryLand, dont call it an OPAC

36
More Test Methods
  • Focus Groups
  • Live Subject Testing
  • Card-sort Tests
  • Any assessment is better than no assessment

37
You can fight jargon and still.
  • Be funny (Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da)
  • Use special language, even made-up words
    (biblioblogosphere)
  • Write for specialized audiences (genealogists)

38
Questions?
  • To vector with the author in an optimized
    space-time continuum leveraging our global
    networked society, contact
  • Karen G. Schneider
  • kgs_at_freerangelibrarian.com
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