Avoid jargon if you can. Sometimes you have no choice.

It makes your writing difficult to understand and puts readers off. Jargon confuses readers and in many cases jargon is ambiguous – always a sign of poor communication. It puts a barrier between you and your readers.

This is especially hard if you interview someone who talks in jargon and mangement cliches. You have a duty to report their words accurately, but you also have a duty not to bombard readers with gobbledegook.

Where you can, turn quotes into indirect speech and simply drop the jargon term. Use easily understood descriptive words and phrases instead.

When you can’t avoid a jargon term give your reader a short definition in plain English.

If possible add an example to illustrate the definition.

I had to write about management when the term ‘participative management’ came up as unavoidable jargon.

I explained this as:

Participative management, a way of running things where the workers take part in decision-making.

It would have been so much better if the interviewee said that in the first place.