Don't Obfuscate Either in Teaching or Newsletters

Dear Jack,
Has this ever happened to you?


You're listening to a high powered speaker give an
impressive presentation. But at times it's like you are
hearing a foreign language. You have a good vocabulary, but
you feel like you should have brought a dictionary. You find
yourself jotting down words to look up later, and discover
that you've missed key parts of the presentation.


You've been bamboozled by an obfuscator.


Obfuscation: "The activity of obscuring people's
understanding, leaving them baffled or bewildered. To make
so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or
understand." {www.Dictionary.com}


Beware of obfuscators. They sound brilliant. They must be
brilliant because their vocabularies are so superior. Their
incomprehensible erudite commentary must be important
because no one can understand it.


I first learned the "value" of obfuscation when I decided
to major in philosophy in college. I was searching for the
meaning of life. I began with introductory classes. I read
the assigned readings and wrote papers analyzing what I had
read. My papers were clear, easy to understand and to the
point. I received grades of "C" or "B-". Those grades
confused me. What was I missing? I thought I understood what
I was reading. I was not accustomed to getting poor grades.
I was upset.


I decided to try an experiment. I used my thesaurus to find
obscure words to replace my clear ones. I obfuscated
everything I said. I replaced my easy to understand
paragraphs with cognitive opaqueness yielding professorial
accolades: grades of B+ and A.


I learned to communicate at a college level, using the most
opaque words I could find in my thesaurus. My professors
were impressed. Many business journals are written in this
academic style as well. When I began to write computer user
manuals and train people, I discovered that my language
needed to be more accessible. I had to unlearn my college
lessons and use language people could readily take in and
remember.


As a communicator, is your goal to sound impressive? Or is
it to deliver information that people can understand and
use?


If you really want people to understand you, if you really
want to make your point, don't force people to reach for a
dictionary when you speak or write.


Warmly,
Sally