Jargon in science writing

If you look up jargon under any style guide, you’ll either see the recommendation to avoid its use altogether or to use it with caution. Here you’ll find out why most writing authorities adamantly reject its use.

What is Jargon?

Jargon is technical vocabulary, or an informal idiom, that is field specific, meaning it is easily understood by people within that particular field. According to the Council of Science Editors Scientific Style and Format, jargon can be

• Shortened forms of words from conversation that may enter formal communication
  • lab for laboratory
• Ignored verb-object relations
  • “We stocked trout in the stream” instead of “We stocked the stream with trout”
• Nouns that are not used with formal meaning
  • “No pathology was found…” instead of “No abnormalities were found…”
• Euphemisms
  • “The patient expired” instead of “The patient died”

In STEM fields, jargon can appear often in informal conversation (like research-group meetings). At times, it can be quite useful because it relates very specific and precise information to those “in the know”. For example, when I was a graduate student, members of my research group often used the nouns TLC and NMR as verbs.

“I TLC’d the reaction to find out when it was finished.” or
“After workup, I NMR’d the crude mixture.”

These terms may have sounded odd to researchers outside of our group, but we knew exactly what was meant by TLC’d and NMR’d. Here’s what it could have been if jargon wasn’t used.

“I used thin-layer chromatography to find out when the reaction was finished.” and
“After work up, I performed a nuclear magnetic resonance experiment on the crude mixture.”

Notice how the spelled-out examples are more formal and longer: neither of which are necessary for conversation between peers.

Why should you avoid jargon in formal writing?

In the above example, the student’s use of TLC and NMR as verbs wasn’t a problem in the informal discussion within a group meeting. As noted in the Chicago Manuel of Style, English nouns are commonly used as verbs and often appear as jargon first. Our research advisor was very strict in removing this jargon from research papers and presentations.

Why?

Because jargon is precise to only some audiences, specifically audiences within your own field. Thus, jargon can limit the reach of your message!

Jargon may exclude

• Researchers outside or new to the field
• Multilingual authors
• General audience

If you spell out the abbreviations in the above examples, they become problematic.

“I thin-layer chromatographied the reaction to find out when it was finished.”
“After workup, I nuclear magnetic resonanced the crude mixture.”

Neither of these uses would make sense to someone outside the field, and they could cause confusion for a multilingual scientist who knows what NMR and TLC are but isn’t familiar with these terms being used as verbs.
Furthermore, jargon can mean different things to different audiences.

For example, the term turnover number “is defined as the maximum number of molecules of substrate that an enzyme can convert to product per catalytic site per unit time” in enzymology. But in organometallic chemistry, the turnover number is the number of moles of substrate that a mole of catalyst can convert to product. Notice that the number of catalytic sites and time are not accounted for in the organometallic chemistry definition.

Here’s an example from Einsohn and Schwartz’s The Copyeditor’s Handbook: “Steep-learning curve” means learning easy information at a fast rate to some or learning difficult information (think walking up a hill) at a slow rate to others.

Results of using jargon in formal communications

Ultimately, jargon can confuse and limit your audience. It makes your reader work harder to understand the message. In fact, the use of jargon in a paper title or abstract may reduce the number of the paper’s citations.

In a 2021 article, Martínez and Mammola found a significant negative relationship between the use of jargon in the title and abstract of 21,486 cave research articles and the number of citations the articles received. This finding likely applies to other fields.

Also, Jargon was found to disrupt fluency and to disengage the audience in a 2020 study in the Journal of language and Social Psychology. Here, study participants reported lower scientific interest in the study and perceived understanding of the topic.

Jargon: yea or nay?

Based on what I describe above, it is usually best to avoid jargon. Science and medical communication are already complex, and so it should be the writer’s goal to make the text as clear as possible, especially for a general audience.

But there are proponents of jargon use in STEM writing. Trevor Quirk, in “Writers should not fear jargon” an opinion piece for Nature, states that removing jargon eliminates important information. He gives the example of “photometry” and “spectroscopy”. Both are “methods of studying light”, but they are two distinct techniques.

Thus, in highly technical papers intended for a specific audience, jargon may have a place, but you must use jargon with care.

If you choose to use jargon, use it judiciously.  
Do you use jargon in your scientific writing? Drop a comment.