Re: Industry jargon OK in marketing docs?

[Kathleen MacDowell <kathleen -at- writefortheuser -dot- com>]

This is an interesting question. I'm not a marketing specialist, but I think
I'd approach the issue by talking to the client. Questions might be:

Is the material directed at a highly specific audience where the terminology
would be the most or best recognized term? Much as I'd tend to agree with
your initial reaction, what seems like jargon to me is often found in
materials aimed at specialized audiences, such as software engineers, versus
what would be found for basic "user" materials.

More generally, do they "feel" that the terminology is necessary, and why.

Who's returning the materials to you? Is it someone who should be making the
final judgment, or perhaps someone who just happened to notice your change
and isn't in the decision loop?

Kathleen



On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 9:43 AM, Julie Stickler <jstickler -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:

> While I'm out of work I'm doing some contracting for previous
> employers.  Last week I formatted some marketing docs for the place
> that I used to work a year ago.  The text had already gone through
> several edits (that I wasn't involved in) so since I was mostly hired
> to format it in InDesign and generate a PDF, I only fixed one glaring
> error, changing "contractor spend" to "contractor spending."
>
> Today I recieved an e-mail asking for the following "Change âspendingâ
> back to âspendâ for phrases like âcontractor spend.â This is industry
> jargon."
>
> Arggghhhh!  I was always taught to remove jargon from my docs.  But
> then I have done mostly software manuals and help, I haven't had much
> experience writing marketing documents.  One the one hand I'm thinking
> that since I'm contracting, the customer is always right.  If that's
> what they want, that's what I should give them.  On the other hand,
> gramatically incorrect jargon makes me cringe.
>
> So I ask you, TECH-Wrlers, do you include industry jargon in your
> marketing docs?
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>
-- 
Kathleen MacDowell
www.writefortheuser.com
kathleen -at- writefortheuser -dot- com
kathleen -dot- eamd -at- gmail -dot- com
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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