Buzzwords versus Jargon

One of the biggest challenges researchers face is how to rid their grant proposals of jargon that while common parlance to them is sometimes jibberish to their readers. Because researchers are experts and have spent decades focused on a particular topic, they're not even sure what constitutes jargon. But, to define it, jargon is the technical or conceptual phrases that your reader doesn't understand. Thus, to know what jargon is, you have to know who your reader is and what they will understand.

So, I've trapped you back into my rule on knowing your audience, which is the cardinal rule of technical writing. But what about buzzwords? As I'm defining them here, buzzwords are the language and concepts that your audience, and particularly, your funding agency uses to describe what they want to fund. Now, while using a bunch of jargon in your proposal is going to annoy people, using buzzwords in your proposal can catch your reviewers' interest.

To show you what I'll mean, I'll use an example sent to me by our wonderful Director of ORDE, Lynette Michael. The Waterloo Foundation recently put out a call for proposals on Child Development and Co-occurrence. They begin the call discussing Co-occurrence:

"In 2018, our funding will again focus on co-occurrences, and the fact that each child has one brain. We are interested in the common and co-occurring neurodevelopmental conditions of, Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) and ADHD, along with Rolandic Epilepsy and Developmental Trauma, and have a particular interest in factors under parents’ influence such as diet, sleep and exercise."

Three paragraphs into the call, the Foundation highlights their use of the term co-occurrence as opposed to the more commonly used co-morbidity, saying

"The medical community often refers to this as comorbidity. We are steadfastly refusing to use this term and refer instead to co-occurrence, which is surely more cheerful for children and their families. We do hope you will join us in using this terminology¹."

This is a very explicit call-out of the Foundation's buzzword, along with why they are choosing to use it. And, if this wasn't clear enough, you'll note the footnote at the end of this explanation:

"1 - Indeed, we will prioritise those applications which refer to co-occurrence rather than to comorbidity."

Although I'm grateful to the Foundation and Lynette for giving us this excellent use of a buzzword and demonstrating how and why PIs should use them, remember that agencies don't usually highlight which words they prefer you use in your application. You have to figure out their buzzwords by researching the agency and being crystal clear on what they're looking for. This research will pay off when the reviewers and agency think, "you know, they really know what we want in a funded project" when they read your proposal.

Resource:
Child Development Call for Proposals - The Waterloo Foundation
Why Academics Have a Hard Time Writing Good Proposals - Texas A&M International University