Writing Pitfall: Assuming Your Audience Shares Your Common Experience

I was talking to my friend and colleague Sarah Anderson, who teaches technical communications at Carleton University, this week.

In a lively class discussion, one of her students said that "everybody" his age would know what Twitch was, and offered to explain to her offline instead, since he was sure everyone in the class would be bored by the explanation.

But was he right? I checked in with my 17-year-old son. Did he agree with the university student's idea that "everybody" would know? Or would he be leaving behind some people who were too shy to ask or admit they didn't already know?

After discussing gamers and online communities and populations of young people, my son said "No, he should not assume everyone is in his knowledge bubble if he is trying to communicate to be understood." We discussed various peers who might not be hooked into Twitch. Not all teens are wild about video gaming.

(I love that a "bubble" is a concept that's a pretty common experience now for us, and a word my teenager naturally picked to describe his concept.)

I see the same problem with scientists, researchers, and engineers all the time. The professionals who are cognizant of the problem hire someone like me to see if their paper is comprehensible to someone outside their research group. Usually it's only a few minor changes I suggest to make sure that all the science and terminology are easy for everybody to understand.

It is all too easy, otherwise, to fall into conversational shorthand -- jargon, acronyms, and not explaining the more complicated or specialized aspects of your research in simple terms that outside parties can understand.

The good news about this problem is that it's easily solved. Knowing is more than half the battle -- once someone asks you a question, just openly and honestly answer it! Even if it's as simple as explaining what Twitch is, or explaining when you say CPR whether you mean cardio-pulmonary resuscitation or Canadian Pacific Railway!

In the end, it's a lot easier to explain yourself than argue that "everybody knows" when we all know, of course, that "everybody" doesn't.

Before Covid, Professor Anderson delivered this idea to students by having them sit in pairs, back to back. Each pair received identical bags of pieces of Lego. One partner had to build something from the pieces, and describe step by step as they went so their partner would build the same thing, without being able to see what their partner was doing.

You can imagine this met with varying degrees of success, depending on the communication skills displayed.

The second year she did this, Professor Anderson sent out a survey -- who had experienced Lego as a child? Who still had some stashed at their parents' house? Who, in fact, still might have some that they played with recently? 

It's not at all everybody.

Think of your technical documents as if you are describing Lego to someone who did not own it as a child. That way, you will reach ALL your readers, instead of losing a number by the way side if they don't pick up on your assumptions.