The researcher as translator: why communication skills are at the heart of what we do

All researchers need to communicate clearly

I’m going to make a bold statement: our success as researchers depends on our ability to communicate clearly.

Think of concept testing, for example. We only get one go at this. The concept needs to be clear the first time the person reads it, because the chances of them re-reading are miniscule. The same is true of attribute statements. They must be clear and unambiguous the instant they are read.

Part of our role as researchers is to work closely with our clients to translate their language into words that we believe the people taking part in our research will understand. However, according to panel members and presenters at the recent Research Society conference, online panel providers are seeing too many questions that people find difficult to answer.

In this article I explain how to use plain language principles so that you write questions that people can answer. After recently seeing a very long and complex concept statement in a survey, I decided to use a concept statement as my example in the article.

What are plain language principles?

The recent ISO standard ISO24495 describes plain language this way: “Plain language is communication that puts readers first. It considers:

• What readers want and need to know;
• Readers’ level of interest, expertise and literacy skills;
• The context in which readers will use the document.”.

This translates into a four-step process: that readers get the relevant information that they need, can find the information that relates to them, and then understand and use it.

In words that should bring a smile to any researcher’s face, the authors of the Standard state that ‘Understanding the readers of a document and their needs is essential to creating a document in plain language’.? For us, this means doing qualitative research first before writing a survey.

Applying these principles to a tricky concept statement

Have you ever been asked to test a concept statement that was long, wordy and salesy, or full of jargon? That has certainly happened to me.

To give a considered response to a concept statement, people taking a survey need to grasp what it is about without effort. ?They need to discover what benefits this concept might have for them and be able to gauge its potential disadvantages.

To help them, we can follow the plain language principles listed above to turn complex wordiness into something that survey respondents can understand easily, in three simple steps.

These steps are:

• Identify jargon and work voice.
• Understand the difficulties that jargon and work voice create.
• Be able to translate problematic words and phrases.

1. Know how to identify jargon and work voice

To protect the guilty, I decided not to use real life examples for this article. Instead, I asked ChatGPT to come up with a new IT product concept, describing it using a wordy writing style.? It is obviously over-blown, but I think you can see what I am getting at.

Here is ChatGPT’s concept statement:

The Vanguard Digital Echelon, a revolutionary digital product that represents a paradigm shift in the digital landscape, epitomizing the convergence of cutting-edge technologies and the discerning demands of the modern user. It seamlessly blends the realms of artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cybersecurity, forging a symbiotic and synergistic ecosystem that offers users an intricate tapestry of possibilities, all while steadfastly safeguarding their data privacy and digital sovereignty.

None of us would receive a concept statement like this to test - I hope!? However, it is useful for my purposes because it uses.

• Technical terms like blockchain that some people taking part in the research might not know.
• Industry jargon – for example paradigm shift and digital landscape, and
• Work voice – for example forging a symbiotic and synergistic ecosystem. Work voice is a term I use to describe that wordy, waffly style of language rarely seen or heard outside the workplace. As an example, I recently came across a financial services survey – targeted to the general public – that talked about ‘navigating a complex landscape’. ?

2. Understand the difficulties this language creates

If you use flowery, wordy language or technical jargon, you risk ending up with the wrong answer because people who respond to surveys:

• Skip over long paragraphs – and sometimes look only at the answer options.
• Skim read anything with long words and long sentences.

This means that the response you think you have received from them may not be their true or considered response. They may have ticked that they are ‘probably interested’ in a concept that they barely read or only half understood. ‘Half understood’ is surely worse than ‘not understood’. At least then they would have ticked ‘Don’t know’.

Wordy and technical language can also be a barrier to participation in research. The Flesch Kincaid readability calculator rated ChatGPT’s example (extreme, I know) as ‘College Graduate level’.? The Australian Style Guide recommends writing for Year 7.

3. How to translate complex language into everyday language

It has to be our job as researchers to translate complex wordiness like this into language that the people taking our surveys can understand.

Here are three easy things that we could do with ChatGPT’s attempt:

Use white space

The first thing to do is break ChatGPT’s long paragraph into two or even three. Use headings and short bullet point lists. This is the first thing I do.

Define technical terms?

Every industry has its technical language.? Our own industry uses the word ‘communities’ for example in a very specific way. That’s fine. When talking to and writing to people in your industry, use industry jargon to your heart’s content.

However, sometimes you need to use an industry jargon term to someone who has never heard it before, or who thinks the word means something quite different. If you suspect this, define it.? For example, in our retirement surveys we define technical superannuation language like ‘defined benefits’. In our research reports ‘statistically significant at the 95% confidence level’ is a technical term that we need to use and define.?

I only suggest defining technical language when there are no other options. Whenever you can, replace jargon with everyday language. For example, ‘steadfastly safeguarding their data privacy and digital sovereignty'?could become ‘keeping their date secure’.

Make it shorter

ChatGPT’s concept is too long.? We know that people will only skim read it.

One way to make it shorter it to remove all the work voice words that have cluttered it up. When people write in work voice, they try make themselves seem important or more intelligent, so they use lots of long words. Sometimes, they add words and phrases that puff up their idea because they expect someone to argue against them. The end result is wordiness and clutter. This phrase

‘a revolutionary digital product that represents a paradigm shift in the digital landscape, epitomizing the convergence of cutting-edge technologies’. could be re-written as ‘cutting-edge digital product’. ?It means the same, doesn’t it??

Hint: whenever you see adjectives (like ‘revolutionary’ in the example above) delete them. It won’t change the meaning, but it will reduce clutter.

This is what I would do with the concept statement

I would first of all write it in plain language, based on my knowledge of the target market, based on the qualitative research we had done.

One possible revision would be:

The Vanguard Digital Echelon is a high-tech digital tool that brings together advanced technology like artificial intelligence and blockchain. Its three main features are …… . Your information will stay private.

Then I would test it.? We always do a cognitive pilot for our surveys where we test how well our target market understands our questions.

Learn why plain language is so effective

Take a deeper dive into plain language in our upcoming Core Skills Course, Using Plain Language to improve your research outcomes, facilitated by Sue Bell and Jane Gregory. This workshop will cover tricky concepts, long concept descriptions, attribute and question wording and report writing.

Learn more and Register: https://www.researchsociety.com.au/eventdetails/17774/core-skills-using-plain-language-to-improve-your-research-outcomes