Streamline Your Health Communications: Tips for Cutting Jargon and Enhancing Readability

Prepared by Samuel Mendez

Summary

As health communicators, we know our writing needs to be short, sweet, and to the point to help people address health issues. This means our writing needs to be easy to read and easy to act on. Here are some tips to edit your writing for greater impact:

1. Cut words with more than 2 syllables.
2. Include a main message statement and a call to action.
3. Use words your audiences search for.

Read on to see these tips in action.

Though there are a lot of ways to measure how complex your text is, we recommend you focus on using words with fewer syllables. Highlight or list the words longer than two syllables. Then try different techniques to remove some from your text. Restructure your sentences. Use synonyms. Define concepts in simpler terms. Delete adverbs. Delete whole sentences.

Following this tip alone won’t make your text perfect. For example, shorter words might still include jargon. But we recommend this as a quick way to start editing your text for clarity.

Example edited text

Let’s look at this text from the CDC’s respiratory virus guidance, with words longer than 2 syllables highlighted:

“Wearing a mask can help lower the risk of respiratory virus transmission. When worn by a person with an infection, masks reduce the spread of the virus to others. Masks can also protect wearers from breathing in infectious particles from people around them. Different masks offer different levels of protection. Wearing the most protective one you can comfortably wear for extended periods of time that fits well (completely covering the nose and mouth) is the most effective option.”

The above text is 78 words long. And 13 of those words have more than 2 syllables. Here is a version of this text with shorter words:

“Wear a mask to avoid getting sick with a cold, the flu, or COVID. Masks work by stopping someone from breathing in a virus from the air or from droplets from someone else’s nose and mouth. Different masks offer different levels of protection. An “N95” that loops around the back of your head protects you more than a surgical mask that loops around your ears. Wear an N95 when in a crowded space. Make sure it covers your nose and mouth.”

This edited text has 81 words. And only 6 of them have more than 2 syllables. We used a few different techniques to accomplish this. We used second-person language and commands to help streamline our sentences. We also explained the concept of “transmission” rather than using the word directly.

Learn more about streamlining your text

Tip 2: Include a main message statement and a call to action

You only have a moment to capture your audience’s attention online or in a flier. It is important to let people know up front why they should keep reading. You don’t want to lose people who might have benefitted from your content, if only you got to the point quicker. Include a main message and a call to action at the beginning of your content so people can see its relevance to their lives right away.

A main message statement should answer the question, “What is this about?” It should be one of the first things your audience reads. Near the main message statement should be a call to action. You might need a sentence or two to make it relevant to your main message. But, again, it should be one of the first things your audience reads. You can use the rest of your content to explain why people should care and how the call to action will help.

Example main message statement and call to action

Let’s take an example adapted from the CDC’s sample materials edited via their Clear Communication Index.  The screenshot below shows a webpage titled, “CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) Healthcare-associated Infections Summary Data Reports Q&A.” The page starts with a list of 19 navigation links that take users to the questions on the page. Users must scroll down or click a link to find out the point of this page, what they can do with the info, or why they should care.

We could easily add a main message statement and call to action before the navigation links. Here is an example:

With this short paragraph, we can quickly state who our intended audience is and what they can do with the information on this page. We can see what this might look like in the edited screenshot below:

The main message and call to action are at the top of the page. They come before the main content of the page. They are in a colored text box to draw attention to. And it includes a short version of the call to action as a heading. This text box provides enough context for our target audience to identify the relevance of this page to their work and start reading the rest of the page via the navigation links. If we were to keep editing the page, we would organize the page into short chunks with headings, as in the screenshot above. We might link to that smaller number of headings rather than each question. Again, following this tip won’t make your writing perfect. But it goes a long way in engaging your audience. It also is a good prompt to edit the rest of your content to support the call to action.

Learn more about main messages and calls to action

Tip 3: Use words your audience searches for—especially in titles and headings

A title that people can’t understand won’t just be a hurdle to them reading your content. It can get in the way of them finding it in the first place. When titling your content, use keywords your audience looks for. This will help it show up in search results and help get people to click on it. To figure out what those keywords are:

• Search for popular content on the same topic for inspiration.
• Ask audience members for these keywords directly.
• Use search engine optimization (SEO) tools to provide automated suggestions.

For these same reasons, you should use keywords in your headings as well. This will help your content show up in search engine results. Once people engage with your content, it will also help them skim your content to find relevant info.

Example title with keywords

Imagine you are writing a tipsheet for parents about respiratory illnesses like cold, flu, RSV, and COVID. You would not want to title it, “Preventing Pediatric Viral Respiratory Illness.” These are not terms a typical parent would search for. And they are not terms many parents would even recognize. Use plain language and SEO strategies to craft a title that appeals to readers and stands a better chance of showing up in search results.

A better title would be, “How to Protect Your Child from Flu and RSV: Expert Tips for Parents.” The title is action oriented. It uses second-person language to speak directly to readers. It uses words like “flu” that parents actually search for. The combination of plain language and SEO in the title set up this tipsheet for more impact.

Learn more about plain language and search engine optimization

Conclusion

This tipsheet offers advice on clear, actionable writing:

• Delete words with more than 2 syllables
• Give your audience takeaways upfront via a main message and a call to action.
• Use search engine optimization to make your writing stand out to readers and search engines alike.

This tipsheet is part of a series on clear communication. It bridges knowledge from health literacy, web accessibility, and journalism to help you elevate your health communication. Combine your clear writing with accessible graphs and clear use of numbers for even more impact.

This tipsheet was prepared by Samuel R. Mendez. It was reviewed by Amanda Yarnell and Elissa Scherer.