Some refreshing (and simple) alternatives to wordy language
Melissa Wardell | October 12, 2015
Plain language is all about clarity and precision. It’s about communication that your audience can understand the first time they read or hear it.
The main goals of plain language are to make sure an audience can:
- find what they need
- understand what they find
- use what they find to meet their needs.
So it makes sense that you should avoid bureaucratic and unnecessarily wordy language.
Get rid of those unnecessarily curly words. (Image by Julie Jordan Scott (CC BY 2.0))
Keeping it simple
Here’s a short list of common business jargon along with plain language alternatives, to help you create easy-to-understand written material.
| Instead of: | Use: |
| accompanied by | with |
| a number of | several |
| as a consequence of | because of |
| by means of | by |
| commence | start, begin |
| discontinue, terminate | end, stop |
| for the purpose of | for |
| in accordance with | by, under |
| in connection with | with, about, concerning |
| in respect of | about |
Check out our free ebooks about alternatives to common jargon